


Spooky Action at a Distance

by Eigenvalium



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Extremely Fictionalized Science, Gen, Post-Canon, Unethical medical procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eigenvalium/pseuds/Eigenvalium
Summary: The nonlocal interaction of men, separated in a room. A failure of early interpersonal theories, which sought to reduce all interactions to collision.
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman
Comments: 30
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

If truth be told, it feels a bit insensitive.

After over a week, clamoring through the infested bowels of Black Mesa. Waist-deep, at times, in water that was polluted with the shredded innards of his former coworkers. Body after body laid waste, either by an alien or by Gordon himself. After travelling across dimensional planes, staring death in the eyes and refusing to flinch. It feels a bit insensitive to celebrate that victory eating pizza at the local Chuck E. Cheese.

Not that Gordon has much of a say in the matter. His mysterious benefactor, Tommy's father, made that extraordinarily clear.

Even so, it's nice to bask in the overstimulating cascade of colors and sounds and smells, characteristic of all Chuck E. Cheeses. After nothing but unfiltered water and flat Mello Yello and stale lunches, scavenged from break room refrigerators, a greasy pile of warm food is a blessing. Hideous animatronic animals jerk around on stage, a cavalcade of inhuman body motions. Ironically, Gordon is grateful for the unease these animatronics instill in him. Grateful to experience an emotional response without the pretense of a life-or-death situation.

The birthday bash lasts hours. A well-organized affair—Gordon would be lying if he said he wasn't taking notes, for his own son's next birthday. Although Gordon's not the type for these entertainment-based restaurants—and it is a restaurant!—it's a joy to spend time with these damn friends of his. Even if it's tough to accept that he'll never stop Dr. Coomer from swallowing every play token he finds. Even if Bubby sees fit to neg Gordon over his poor skee ball form.

Even if they drag him, against his will, into an impromptu dance session. Tommy swinging his arms around, completely out-of-sync with the music. "Come on, Mr. Freeman, this is the song of the summer!"

It's a joy, a blessing, a perfect little moment encased in amber, protected from the trauma of any preceding events.

But as with all things, it's also finite. And as Gordon sits in the back of a taxi, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the side door window, the Alburquerque outskirts rushing by in a blur, his mind wanders back to Black Mesa, considering the fate of the other surviving staff he had left behind.

Did they succumb to whatever aliens remained, lurking in the vents? Were their bodies left in unmarked graves, on the receiving end of a military grade bullet? Where was their mysterious benefactor, to come whisk them away to safety? 

Stars begin to pierce through the sky's baby blue veil as the taxi pulls into the parking lot of Gordon's apartment complex. While the taxi driver had been polite enough—or terrified enough—not to comment, two neighbor kids can't help but gawk at Gordon. Fixie bikes nearly colliding with each other. Although Gordon had removed his helmet at some point, the HEV suit is still on, noticeably blood-stained and tattered.

Inside his apartment, Gordon wastes no time in peeling off the suit, disposing of it in his kitchen trash can. His skin is clammy, and without the HEV suit as a buffer, the scent of his unwashed body overwhelms. So he takes a hot shower, indulges himself, lets himself soak in the fresh, cleansing rain for the better part of an hour. Counter-intuitively, the hot water wakes him up. And so, after he dresses and blow-dries his hair, Gordon finds himself flipping between news stations, skimming for information about Black Mesa.

Most anchors describe the incident as a "core reactor meltdown", likening it to Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. If that's the government's official stance, Gordon thinks it's a misstep. If Mexican scientists don't notice incoming radiation from the north, they might ask questions.

According to local news outlets, Gordon learns about the mandatory evacuation zone, a 15-mile radius extending out from Black Mesa headquarters. Although it excludes the city proper of Albuquerque, some parts of the greater metropolitan area are affected. The entire city is on high alert, with local anchors repeating similar warnings every hour. "Keep your bags packed, have a destination in mind, be prepared to abandon everything, including pets, etc.,"

For a grim moment, Gordon wonders if his rent will be waived this month. It would give him some time to file for unemployment.

————————————————————

Despite a night on the charging dock, Gordon's phone refuses to power back on. Permanently broken during the events of last week. Water damage, if Gordon had to guess. If luck is on his side, and it so rarely is, the SIM card will be recoverable.

First thing's first, he hails another cab. Although his ex-wife's apartment is within walking distance, his aching muscles and general sensitivity to the summer heat beg for the relief of an air-conditioned car ride.

He knocks on his ex-wife's apartment door—once, twice, three times before one of her next door neighbors peers into the hallway. A middle-aged man, surly and smelling unpleasantly of motor oil. Gordon's met him before, passing him in the hallway when he'd come to pick up Joshua, but never exchanged words. "Jules' ex?" He asks, less as a question, and more as surprised rhetorical, "Christ, I thought you worked at that nuclear plant, or somethin'?"

"I, uh, yeah. Yeah," Gordon stammers, "I was just… released from the hospital, last night."

The man nods, a look of sympathy flashing across his face. "She and your boy left a few days ago. Handful of people 'round here left, voluntarily. Guess that whole meltdown business got them scared. See, I assume if something worse was gonna happen, it'd've already happened. Then again," he pauses, gesturing directly at Gordon, "I'm not the egghead who caused all of this. So what do I know?"

His light tone and wry grin suggests the man is joking, but Gordon finds it difficult to laugh. Instead, he thanks the man and takes his leave, heading back to the main road, waiting for another taxi to drive by. Jules' decision to err on the side of caution was right, but Gordon can't quell the bitter feeling of being denied the opportunity to see his son, after everything.

The next task—buying a new phone—proves more difficult than anticipated. More than just a "handful" of people opted to voluntarily evacuate, it seems. As the cab navigates the city proper, Gordon takes in the surroundings. Traffic is unusually light for a Thursday morning, and the only pedestrians he sees are panhandlers. Most businesses preemptively closed until further notice, some taking the overcautious approach of boarding up their store windows. 

It takes two days before Gordon finds an open store, still selling cheap phones. Luck graces Gordon with its presence, and his SIM card is undamaged. All contacts completely recoverable.

Once he's back at his apartment, he calls his ex-wife, who starts to cry at the sound of his voice. She was certain—absolutely certain!—that he had died in the "reactor meltdown". Missing for over a week, with no records of him at any hospital. Surely he was dead, buried beneath rubble or drowned in a pool of irradiated water. Gordon has no believable lie for her, no excuse that would explain the radio silence or the missing hospital records. But Jules' immediate relief supersedes her drive for real answers. She doesn't press him for details.

When she turns the phone over to Joshua, it's Gordon's turn to cry. Relieved beyond words to hear his son babble about how he misses Kindergarten, or how cold Seattle gets at night, or how grandma doesn't make pancakes as good as his dad does.

Regular phone calls with Joshua become Gordon's only bright spot in the coming weeks. Without a task at hand, the days blur by, Gordon left in a depressive stupor. For hours at a time, he reclines on his couch, flipping between news channels and watching various talking heads wax poetical about the Black Mesa incident. For once in his life, Gordon wishes he saved phone books, so he could look up Tommy or Dr. Coomer's numbers.

On his sixth day back, Albuquerque downgrades its emergency alert status from "high" to "medium". The mandatory evacuation radius is reduced to 5 miles.

On the tenth day, the official death toll is declared at 254.

On the thirteenth day, an emergency broadcast announces an unexplained phenomenon, an enormous "portal" opening above a large eastern Pennsylvania corn farm. Live video shows National Guardsmen mowing down a small army of bullsquids. The bullsquids themselves are covered in red blood of indeterminate origin. Gordon turns off the television and sleeps the remainder of the day.

On the fourteenth day, someone knocks on his door. Gordon finds Darnold, of all people, standing at his door step, in plain clothes, looking a bit sheepish, but otherwise no worse for wear. Gordon, unable to restrain his relief and enthusiasm, grabs Darnold by the shoulders, shaking him gently. "Holy shit, man, look at you! You're— you— you made it out! Christ, man, I didn't think anyone else from Black Mesa got out of there!"

"Oh, uh, hey, Dr. Freeman. It's nice to see you're safe, too," Darnold says, mildly distracted. His eyes track Gordon's right arm, from shoulder to hand, with a mixture of shock and unbridled confusion. "Uh, what happened to the minigun?"

"Right, yeah!" Gordon pulls his hands back, suddenly a bit self-conscious and unsure how to describe his otherworldly interaction with Tommy's father. So instead, he says, "I think— I think it just sort of… wore off. After a few days. Like, I woke up and all the gun bits had shed off and shit. Maybe the gun was just a— a cocoon? For the new flesh hand, y'know?"

Darnold cocks an eyebrow. "Okay, that sounds like a lie, but, well, who am I to argue?"

It takes an enormous amount of self-discipline for Gordon to hold his tongue, and keep himself from reminding Darnold that he's the one who made the minigun potion. He'd have every right to argue. Instead, Gordon deflects with his own question. "So, what are you doing here, man? How did you even find me?"

"Tommy gave me your address."

"Tommy?!"

"Well, you see, a handful of us ex-Black Mesa—the surviving ones, of course—we smuggled out a bunch of equipment. It was easy enough to sneak past the military after you closed the Xen portal. Then, someone rented out a couple storage units, moved all the equipment in there. We set up shop, so to speak," Darnold pauses, rubbing his neck in mild nervousness, "I say 'we', as if I had anything to do with it. I just brought up you and Tommy and the others as people we should, uh, reach out to. Given we're all basically unemployed."

Falling ass-first into another maniac scientist's mess is the last thing Gordon wants. His mind evokes images of human clones, and vats of mysterious green liquids, and malfunctioning anti-mass spectrometers. But another part of Gordon's mind, the lonelier part, wants to jump at the opportunity to see Tommy and Bubby and Dr. Coomer again. At the very least, to exchange phone numbers. 

"Let me sleep on it," is the most he can commit to.

On the fifteen day, a second portal opens over rural Colorado. Gordon calls Darnold for directions to the new lab.

————————————————————

"Hello, Gordon!"

Dr. Coomer's distinctive cadence is music to Gordon's ears. The Science Team meet him at the entrance of the parking lot. Coomer and Tommy are both sporting fresh, clean lab smocks. Bubby, in contrast, is wearing khakis and a hot pink collared shirt that looks like it was scavenged from some UNM fratboy's laundry. "Mr. Freeman, it's been so _long_ since we've last _seen_ you, how have you _been_?" Tommy asks, an infectious smile splitting across his face.

"I know, man, these past two weeks felt like an eternity," Gordon says, "I feel… I'm— I'm doing good. I mean, things have been boring as shit, but, like, boring is better than dying."

"Gordon, I am so glad that you agreed to come to the new Black Mesa facility! I do regret having forgotten to exchange phone numbers before we parted ways," Coomer says, "We wouldn't want to lose touch, now, would we?"

It takes a few moments for The Science Team to exchange numbers; Dr. Coomer struggling with his flip phone in a comedic fashion, stereotypical of someone his age. A moment too long for Bubby's liking, whom, immediately upon receiving Gordon's confirmation text, forges ahead of the group, towards the storage buildings. "Let's get a move on!"

"Oh, good thinking, Dr. Bubby! We wouldn't want to be late to our first day of work!"

The lot is filled with warehouses and personal garage units, primarily rented out to a variety of local logistics businesses. One garage unit fashioned itself into a little gastropub, complete with a row of cafeteria tables installed in front of the overhead door. "I wonder if they sell curly fries," Tommy muses aloud, and Gordon mentally echoes the sentiment.

Tucked away in the back corner of the lot are two relatively small warehouses, separated by a narrow alley. The door to each building is guarded by armed men, one of whom Gordon recognizes as the security guard he met in Level A of the Lambda Lab. With a curt nod, the guard grants the group access to the larger warehouse.

Darnold and another scientist, Dr. Keyes, intercept the group for a tour. The building interior resembles neither a lab nor a warehouse, but rather an overrun warzone medical tent. Areas are sectioned off with semi-opaque clean room curtains, hanging from shoddily installed ceiling rods. According to Darnold, these areas are used for researching alien specimens—mostly dead headcrabs and peeper puppies. Unsurprisingly, the building smells distinctively of antiseptic masking rot.

Lined up against the building's back wall is a half dozen 1000-gallon fish tanks. Chucks of an unfamiliar monster, segmented into smaller pieces for ease of storage, float in some sort of preservative liquid. "What the hell is that?" Bubby asks, his bluntness a virtue at times like these.

"That's what we're here to investigate," Dr. Keyes says, "These aliens… these monsters? They decimated us back there, in Black Mesa. Now we have portals opening up across the United States. Rumors of a portal in western China, too. Two weeks ago was just the tip of the iceberg. And if we want humanity to have a chance to knock these monsters back, we need to understand them.

"Most of the things around here, we found in Black Mesa. The front line soldiers, so to speak. But this? This came directly from Xen."

The entire situation is hard to digest. A hundred questions die on Gordon's tongue, as he tries to process it all. "Look, Dr. Keyes, I'm not—" he finally says, struggling to control his exasperation, "This is all… great. It's great! It's… impressive, what you're trying to start, here. But I'm a theoretical physicist, I don't know shit about biology. Let alone speculative alien biology. This shit's way outside my wheelhouse!"

The other members of The Science Team might have ways to contribute. Dr. Coomer, after all, was a bona fide microbiologist with decades of experience under his belt. And despite having grown up in a tube, Bubby's knowledge and expertise in genetics was formidable. Even Tommy, with his doctorate in nuclear chemistry, had worthwhile knowledge to share.

Gordon was the missing link, here. And frankly, all the better! The idea of spending the better part of his day cutting open dead aliens made him queasy.

Dr. Keyes, to his credit, shoots Gordon a sympathetic look. "Let's take a walk, Dr. Freeman," he says, beckoning with his hand, before giving The Science Team a parting remark, "Gentlemen. If you're still interested in working with us, I'm sure Dr. Darnold can help get you further situated. We have a lot to do, so don't be shy about… jumping in!"

Dr. Keyes escorts Gordon back outside, across the alley, into the adjacent storage facility. Despite being the smaller of the two warehouses, the interior is more complex. Or rather, more finished. The entrance door leads into a small room, with beige Berber carpet and a low ceiling, as if disguising the building's true purpose as a warehouse. At some point, it might've served as the customer-facing reception for an auto body shop.

A door to the immediate right, guarded by another armed man, leads to the warehouse proper. It's more sparsely populated—no clean room curtains or surgical tables. Instead, there are rows upon rows of various lab equipment. Disassembled parts of what Gordon recognizes to be Black Mesa's tabletop particle accelerator. A few smaller models of vacuum ovens, a plasma cleaner, and a variety of metrology tools. An entire row of liquid and gas chromatographs, paired up with a variety of detectors and standard mass spectrometers.

In the back right-hand corner of the facility is another standalone room, similar to the reception area. What's different is the door, solid steel and fitted with both a numeric keypad and an RFID scanner. Adjacent to the door is a long workbench, decorated with various biomedical and electrical equipment, as well as a single CCTV monitor. "Where we need your help," Dr. Keyes says, gesturing at the monitor, "is here."

The inconsistent video quality makes it difficult for Gordon to process what he's looking at. It displays a barren room, presumably the one behind the locked steel door. Only two pieces of furniture decorate the space—an aluminum table and a matching aluminum chair. Sitting atop the table in quiet defiance is a man. Small and gaunt, with short black hair pressed against his forehead. He's dressed in pure white hospital scrubs, which give him a ghostly appearance. A series of electrodes are connected to his head, with more snaking beneath his shirt.

The human brain is a miraculous pattern-recognizing machine. Equal parts powerful and fragile. At times, finding shapes and meanings where none exist. And at other times, failing to recognize familiar things, when placed in an unusual context.

It takes Gordon a second, which then drags out into a minute, before he is able to reckon with reality. Sitting in that room, not a scratch or bullet wound to be seen, is Benrey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Running a theoretical physics lab in a rental garage next to a microbrewery. Looking to inflict the same about of global damage as Jeff Bezos.
> 
> @trawpius on websites if you feel like it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gordon Freeman just drops his metal-plated HEV suit in a kitchen trash bin. This is the writing folly of a person who hasn't played a Half Life game since 2012.

Although initiated by Black Mesa via the Resonance Cascade, the inter-dimensional rift between Earth and Xen was a mutually established gateway system. Earth sent out the initial request, and Xen eagerly accepted—ready, at the drop of a hat, to unleash its invasive hoards. To close the connection required a similar handshake; an acknowledgement from both parties to terminate the link.

So, despite best efforts, the only way to truly reverse the Resonance Cascade was by travelling to Xen, and killing whatever interplanetary beast refused to hang up the metaphorical phone.

A few unlucky souls braved the journey to Xen, fixing to be heroes, only to meet their gruesome ends. It wasn't until Dr. Gordon Freeman and his merry band of scientists-turned-mercenaries arrived on the scene, that the tides turned in Earth's favor. Freeman and company traveled to Xen, and the effects of the Resonance Cascade were successfully reversed.

But it wasn't The Science Team's doing that allowed the rift to be closed.

No. The battle—if it could even be described as a battle—was fought and won within 5 seconds of Gordon and company stepping through that portal.

Unsure of what to do, the remaining Lambda Lab staff waited around anxiously. But as minutes stretched into hours of complete radio silence, the men made a bold decision. To reestablish a small portal to Xen, and send a search and rescue party.

Four men, three armed guards and one physicist, materialized on Xen to find a veritable bloodbath. Native Xen creatures' bodies strewn across the various floating land masses, like a trail of bloody bread crumbs, guiding the rescue team through the complex and dangerous terrain. Every once in a while, they stumbled upon the semi-fresh corpse of a wannabe hero—one of Gordon Freeman's unluckier predecessors. With mild reluctance, they left the bodies behind, now permanent fixtures of this alien plane.

Deeper within the guts of Xen, the larger the fauna became, most torn apart by heavy gunfire. But one creature's mode of death was exceedingly bizarre, giving the men pause. It was a bulbous and fleshy beast, with a third arm and hand sprouting from its distended stomach. Its mouth was wretched open in a permanent death scream, revealing multiple rows of jagged teeth. No bullets riddled its body, but rather, the upper half of its head appeared to have "melted" away, like a ball of plastic exposed to a heat source. Grayish skin and bone dripping away to expose the pseudobrain underneath. 

On subsequent excavatory missions, the men would recover this creature, chopping its body into transportable chucks and storing it in a series of formaldehyde aquariums. In time, they would settle on a name—"Nihilanth"—and speculate at length about its role in the ecosystem of Xen.

And yet, despite all of these discoveries, there was no sign of Gordon Freeman. So, with no imminent danger at hand, the rescue team ventured into the furthest reaches of Xen. Eventually entering the center atrium—a high-ceiling chamber with desaturated brown walls, inscribed with unusual, complex patterns. The floor was flooded, knee-deep with bright, red liquid that, based on its coppery scent, might've been blood. Indistinct chunks of something—flesh, muscle, organs—bobbed in the liquid. Ingredients in a viscera stew.

Dead center of the atrium, half-submerged and barely visible in the dim light, was a human skeleton. Although a sorry sight, it wasn't until the men drew closer that they noticed some shocking peculiarities. The first, and most obvious of which, was the light source—pulsing within the skeleton's rib cage, emitting a soft, red glow.

Even stranger, still, were the skeleton's limbs.

In opposition of gravity, the blood-like liquid from the pool trickled in small rivulets up the skeleton's arms and legs, congealing around the bone. Slowly transforming into fresh muscle and tendon. With an abundance of caution, both for personal safety and the integrity of the skeleton's form, the men lifted the creature out of the pool, its bones held together with already-existing ligaments. At its hands and feet, pale skin had begun to graft over the layer of muscle.

Removed from the pool, the creeping regeneration process stopped. And for the first time, the skeleton moved, jerking weakly against the grip of its captors, attempting to escape. When unsuccessful, it opened its jaw and unleashed a steady stream of sounds—like hyper-compressed human speech, reduced to unintelligible mutterings.

Then, perhaps realizing the futility of its words, the skeleton slumped in the men's arms, silent and still as they transported it back to Earth. Eventually finding a new home in a rinky-dink warehouse room, the sole "live" specimen the ex-Black Mesa staff had to show for. 

Small tissue samples were taken from the creature's arms and legs, and genetically sequenced. An attempt to shed light on the skeleton's nature, which only led the scientists further into darkness. Analysis showed genetic markings of two different humans, and an entirely unrelated genome which would later be identified as pigeon cells. Other tissue samples, when inspected under a microscope, revealed something far more alien—not cells, but a cellular analog, which bore a striking resemblance to Nihilanth's brain tissue.

A human-shaped readymade, built with whatever organic material was most readily available. Able to reshape and repurpose at will.

The creature could not—or would not—appropriate living flesh, as evidenced by the fact that none of the men who carried it out of Xen were injured. Even when prompted with live test rats, it simply regarded the animals with a dull fascination. It wasn't until the scientists brought fresh butcher's meat—cuts of beef and pig and poultry—that the regeneration process began anew. Meat transmogrifying into man. Until all that remained, after a few curious hours, was a perfect replica of a fully grown human.

A human whom some recognized as a member of Gordon Freeman's party—Benrey.

When he spoke, now, it was in perfect English—albeit, the content of his words were often disjointed and bizarre. He retained a working memory, mentioning Dr. Freeman and Dr. Coolatta by first name, frequently. But when interrogated about his nature or memories of what happened in Xen, he became frustratingly obtuse, diverting the conversation towards mundane and confused topics.

Despite this, Benrey was relatively compliant with the scientists' physical examinations. Voicing loudly, complaints, as they hooked him up to medical instruments. But never resisting. Although the regeneration process had recreated perfect facsimiles of human internal organs, only certain physical functions "worked". He could see, and hear, and would react to pressure and heat and mild pain. And while his heart beat—a slow, unchanging pace—it was only to circulate blood through his body, so that it wouldn't settle at his feet. When he inhaled, his lungs did not oxygenate his blood. Nor did he eat or drink, aside from asking for the occasional soda—but this, more than anything, appeared to be a recreational request.

Benrey's cells did not need oxygen or nutrients, because his cells were not alive. But neither did he decompose.

A perfectly preserved flesh puppet, powered by supernatural means.  
  
————————————————————

When a person encounters a life-threatening situation, there are a handful of canned reactions they might default to. The Big F's: fight, flight, and freeze. Tactically speaking, flight is the best instinct—foregoing the risk and energy expenditure of a fight, while taking proactive measures to protect the body. But when people experience these reactions, in the absence of an active threat, the behavior becomes maladaptive. Heightened heart rate, uneven breathing, paranoia. In the case of a flight response, there comes an uncontrollable desire to escape.

And in the case of a fight response, there's rage.

"What the _fuck_ is he doing here? _How_ the fuck did he get here?" Gordon whips around, looking between Dr. Keyes and the other scientists in the warehouse. His lips peeling back into a vicious snarl. "Do you realize how _dangerous_ this guy is? Christ, how hasn't he tried to kill you, yet?"

Memories of Xen bubble to the surface of his mind. Benrey's body twisting and contorting in unfathomable ways, his villainous monologue echoing throughout the chamber. Skeletal minions singing their Sweet Voice, which blended together into a violent musical symphony. The exhaustion, the threat of imminent death, the desperate appeal to life and the lives of his friends. 

"We've observed inexplicable regenerative properties, but nothing to suggest that this man is dangerous," Keyes says. Then, leaning towards Gordon, his tone more appeasing, "Not to say you're wrong, but… Well, I'll be honest. He brings you up pretty frequently. I figured the two of you were friends. Or at least allies. He was a part of your group, that went into Xen, right?"

"That dude—he's, like, King Xen, man! The minute we got there, he started doing all this crazy growing and shape-shifting. Kicking his ass was the only reason we undid the whole Resonance Cascade!"

For a second, Dr. Keyes remains silent, eyes unfocused as he mulls over Gordon's words. When he speaks again, he is slow and deliberate, as if he's still finalizing his thoughts as he says them. "The Resonance Cascade reversed almost immediately after you left for Xen. And based on my personal observations, I have no reason to think time moves any differently over there. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Benrey's connection to Xen is… tenuous, at best."

That can't be true. It can't be true, because the implication is too bleak to accept. If the Science Team killing Benrey—or at the very least, temporarily disabling him—hadn't been the end goal. If the issue of the inter-dimensional rift between worlds, threatening all life on Earth, had resolved itself, through no action of their own. If Gordon could've just turned back, sat down and waited for extraction without lifting a single fingernail against the universe's most baffling and persistent pest, then what had been the point?

Gordon presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to relieve the growing tension in his head. "Okay, sure, great. So he's an entirely unique brand of reality-altering monstrosity! What do you want _me_ to do about it?"

"I want you to help us _understand_ , Dr. Freeman," Keyes says, "Talk to him. Try and get into his head. The first step in learning to control something is to understand it."

Whatever mess is going on inside Benrey's head, Gordon wants no part of it. And yet, against his better judgement, Gordon agrees to talk. If only to demonstrate how futile such a project would be.

Dr. Keyes punches a few numbers into the keypad, then swipes his lanyard, unlocking the steel door. Gordon steps inside, door slamming closed in his wake. The sound of the automatic locking mechanism echoes loudly in his ears, as he takes inventory of the room.

There are no surprises, really. He spots two CCTV cameras, mounted on opposite walls. The floor is uncarpeted, and there's a small ventilation duct in the northwest corner. The light situation is oppressive—rows of fluorescent tube fixtures, buzzing in perfect synchronization. These details were all unimportant, of course, a distraction from the main attraction. The man sitting, crisscross applesauce, on the table like a ghoulish centerpiece.

After days and days of constant lies and belittling remarks, culminating in a life-or-death battle of debatable importance, Gordon is shocked when he finally looks at Benrey. Shocked by his own sense of smug satisfaction, seeing the monster unarmed and wired up like a science experiment. Even Benrey's expression, once severe and perpetually judgmental, seems vulnerable without the shadowy protection of his helmet.

"Guess it was too much to ask for you to stay dead?"

"Oh, hey."

"Is… is that all you have to say to me, man? Not gonna, I dunno, explain yourself? Or try and kill me, again?"

"Huh? No. What?" Benrey asks, eyes darting down. He stares at his knees for a few seconds, then looks back up at Gordon, mildly surprised when he asks, "Who let you in here?"

"The scientists outside. Y'know, your _captors_. They authorized me—basically begged me to talk to you. So don't try and pull any of that 'passport' shit on me, asshole."

On cue, Benrey shoves his hands into his pockets, as if routing around for his own passport to rub Gordon's nose in. But his pockets are empty, and he resigns to folding his hands in his lap, again. Gordon can't help but gloat. "Hey, look who's missing their passport, now. Must suck, right? Trapped in here with no credentials."

"Yeah, but it's cool, 'cuz we're over international waters, so…"

"What? N-no, we're not, man. We're in New Mexico. Y'know, America?" Gordon shakes his head, "Bet that's why they're keeping you in this room. No I.D., no records, a persona non grata. Can't let a dangerous guy like you wander around, unattended!"

"Mmmm. This is my room, though. You broke in, like you always do, without even knocking. I was trying to sleep, and you break in making noise, like you own the place. The doorman's scared of you, man. You frighten people, and they let you go where ever… Not me, though."

"Not you, huh?" More than anything, this sentiment re-ignites Gordon's ire. To think, after all the headache and hardship he caused, Gordon can't inspire the slightest bit of fear in this bastard's heart. Perhaps it's bold to assume he can feel anything except low-grade spite.

Regardless, Gordon closes the gap between him and Benrey, slamming his right fist against the table, which rattles intensely. The noise is enough to startle Benrey—his expressing unchanging, but his posture suddenly at attention.

"Well, maybe you should rethink that, asshole! Because despite all your weird, fucked up god powers, I'm _still_ the one who fucking _killed_ you. Not the other way around," Gordon pauses for a sharp intake of air, "I don't know what these scientists want with you. I don't know why you're _humoring_ them, either. And frankly, I don't care! But whenever the other shoe drops, and it's time for you to be _put down_? I'll be there. Every fucking time. Until your death finally fucking _sticks_ , bro."

Midway through his spiel, Benrey had broken eye contact, head tilted down, as if shielding his expression. There's no mean-spirited retort, no deflecting non-sequitur. Just an uncomfortable silence, bearing down its weight. Gordon resolves not to speak first, not to fold under the tension, as if doing so would be tantamount to a surrender. So he waits and he waits for the monster's response.

"Oh, look, your hand grew back," Benrey finally says, the subtlest hint of awe peppering his tone. Eyes fixated on Gordon's hand, which is still balled in a tight fist against the table.

At this, Gordon balks, throwing both hands into the air. Of course! Why would he think, for a second, that Benrey might've felt a lick of shame or discomfort? Frankly, it's Gordon's own fault, for trying to chase that self-righteous high, for wanting to feel like a big man.

So he yells, "Jesus Christ, I can't fucking do this!" And instantly, bright blue and green light floods his vision. A melodic, uninterrupted tone, filling the empty spaces of Gordon's mind. Something warm collides against his face and open mouth, followed by the cold sensation of liquid rapidly evaporating against his skin. Another yell dies in his throat, replaced with feelings of muted annoyance and fatigue. His arms fall limply to his sides, and he spits out a single, venomous, "Fuck you, man."

Any attempt to storm out angrily is interrupted by the fact that the room is locked from the outside. It takes a few, awkward moments before Dr. Keyes opens the door, Gordon wasting no time in shoving past him. This time, the door's auto-locking mechanism is a relief to hear.

"What the hell was that?" one scientists demands.

"Look, I told you, that wasn't— We aren't friends. I barely understand half the shit that comes out of that guy's mouth. If you need a god damn communication liaison, go ask Tommy, he's—"

"No, no, the _lights_ ," Keyes clarifies, the man's typical professionalism broken by a look of pure enthusiasm, "What were those lights?"

"You… you mean, the Black Mesa Sweet Voice?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cops (security guards) are pigs (molecularly modified pork meat sculpted into the perfect replica of a human body)
> 
> I am the world's leading emdash expert. Why use commas and semicolons? Why write new sentences or put things in parentheticals? We got the emdash, babey!


	3. Chapter 3

If Keyes and his scientist flunkies' stunned reactions are any indication, the Black Mesa Sweet Voice is misattributed. Although, given the abundance of human experimentation going on behind the scenes, Gordon couldn't be blamed for thinking Sweet Voice was another Black Mesa joint. Not a single person recognizes the phenomenon, nor is anyone aware of a medical project in which "voice activated light orbs" is the main deliverable.

Huddled around the television monitor, the scientists watch the 10-second clip of Benrey bombarding Gordon with orbs. Again and again, with investigative fervor, like children obsessively re-watching their favorite cartoon movie. Most of the Sweet Voice catches Gordon in the face. What orbs escape, float upwards, buoyant and light, producing an unearthly blue-green glow that reflects off the sterile, white walls. Little sky lanterns, suspended in air for a few seconds, before popping into nonexistence.

Based on Gordon's verbal account, the group speculates on the Sweet Voice's physical properties. Its buoyant nature resembles that of a soap bubble. A gaseous mixture of oxygen—or something lighter, such as helium—contained by a thick film of unknown material. A substance with a strong enough surface tension to maintain its form, but with a low enough boiling point to evaporate like rubbing alcohol. The resulting vapors, absorbed through the lungs of the target, likely account for the mind-altering effects.

The question of how Sweet Voice is created is another mystery. Given its link to the respiratory system—expelled via the mouth, always accompanied by some sort of vocal inflection—one scientist wonders if it's produced in the lungs or throat, similar to phlegm. A comparison that inspires a brief gagging fit in Gordon.

A greater mystery, still, and the topic that generates the most discussion, is the source of the light. Surely a byproduct of a biochemical reaction—any other explanation teeters between farfetched and downright magical. Personally, Gordon has seen the entire rainbow spill from Benrey's mouth. But to think that Sweet Voice was limited to the visible light spectrum seemed a bit too convenient. In all likelihood, versions of it could extend into the infrared and ultraviolet ranges. Although, the overactive part of Gordon's mind, having learned to expect both the worst and most impossible scenarios, imagines Benrey opening his mouth and emitting a beam of lethal gamma radiation, frying everyone in the building.

All that being said, slinging around hypotheses was little more than an intellectual exercise, without samples to test.

The problem—as is always the problem where Benrey's involved—is cooperation.

Gordon watches, heart skipping with mild schadenfreude, as different scientists attempt to speak with the man. Filing in and out, one after the other, with little deviation from the script. From polite requests to begging to bribes, each person is met with a cold, decisive "nah".

It was a fool's errand from the start. But then, hasn't Gordon always been an elevated errand boy?

The following day, at Dr. Keyes' behest—and with the promise of a paycheck if he stayed onboard Keyes' team—Gordon returns to the beast's cage. With a goal in mind, by framing the pending conversation as a series of transactions done in the name of scientific advancement, the sight of Benrey doesn't raise Gordon's hackles. He is just a metaphorical biologist, and Benrey is a troublesome little microbe, squirming beneath the microscope.

"Hey, Benrey," Gordon says, affecting a certain level of breeziness. Today, Benrey has deigned to sit in the chair, hands clasped over the table. A second chair sits, empty, directly across from him. His dark, tired eyes trace Gordon's movements, acknowledging the newcomer but never returning the greeting.

"Should I even bother sitting down? You planning on being a huge pain in the ass, today?"

"Wh-Huh? What?"

"Or did you tucker yourself out, stonewalling everyone, yesterday? It's gotta be tiring work, pissing people off all the time."

"Nah, those guys were my friends. I invited them over to hang out after you bailed."

"Friends, huh?" Gordon hums, and takes a seat. A lot of people have been coercively described as Benrey's 'friend' in the past, himself included. As far as Gordon is concerned, a 'friend' means anything within Benrey's line of sight that he can actively malign. Leaning forward, elbows pressed against the cold tabletop, Gordon asks, "Then what were you and those guys talking about?"

"Private feelings. It's rude to ask about things you aren't involved in. Except you were involved because we were bad mouthing you," Benrey says. Although his dour expression remains static, there's an infuriating lilt in his voice that borders on teasing, "Won't say why, though."

"Dude, everything in this room's recorded!" Gordon says, gesturing towards one of the cameras behind him, "I know you weren't talking about me! You weren't talking about _anything_!"

"Why'd you ask, then? Seems a little— a little stupid to ask a question when you know the answer already."

Gordon screws his mouth shut, breathing heavily through his nose. Wills away the tension that threatens to course through his body. Succumbing to his natural instincts and engaging in mindless bickering only distracts from his scientific goal. "Right. Fine, whatever. That's not even— I'm not here to make small talk with you. I'm here…" he pauses, toying with what approach to take. If half a dozen attempts at being direct failed, then maybe it's time to give lying a shot?

"I'm here for that beautiful singing of yours."

Finding meaning in Benrey's body language is a bit like finding shapes in clouds. But if Gordon were to guess, his interest is piqued. "Got a— a jonesing for a lullaby, sleepy head? Little sleepy baby wants to be put to bed for a nap?"

"Not if you're gonna be a huge prick about it!" Gordon says, resisting the urge to yell through great personal discipline, "Can't you just give me a break, and sing for me, man? "

"Yeah, sure. Okay," Benrey says, affirmatively, with a near-imperceptible tilt of his head. A far cry from the immediate, off-hand dismissal Gordon's coworkers faced yesterday. 

An ignorant man might've mistaken this as agreement, but if Gordon has learned anything about this inscrutable bastard, it's that nothing is ever that simple. Despite his words, Benrey does not start singing. He makes no noise at all. Time stretches out between them, drawn long and taut by the absence of any sound, before Gordon prompts him, again, "Yeah, what? Don't just leave me hangi—"

"Ssh, sh! Quiet, please. Please. Audience quiet," Benrey says, then shuts up, himself. Wordless and stoic, except to shush whenever Gordon tries to interject. The perfect picture of impassivity. Constructing a silent prison in which Gordon is held captive—for seconds, for minutes—until something in Benrey's expression shifts. Until some abstract finale is reached, and he decides to speak once more. "Thank you for listening to my ren— my rendition of 4'33". By artist musician David Cage, composer for Cheese Cat-Astrophe starring Speedy Gonzales for the Sega Genesis."

As if sucker-punched in the gut, a heady whine escapes from Gordon's throat. Decrescendoing into a full blown groan, until his lungs are voided of all air. Benrey laughs at this, saying, "You trying to sing, too? Sounds shit. Thought you went to Julliard, but you can't even hold a note."

"Ju—Huh? I went to fucking M.I.T., asshole."

"Musical Institute of T-Tunes…? Hope you get your money back."

Inspiration strikes like lightning to a golfer. Words already spilling out of Gordon's mouth before he has a real grasp on the idea. "If you think you're such hot shit, then show me, man? Teach me how to sing!"

Benrey chews on this for moment, his fingers drumming against the table—a tinny and uneven beat. He hunches over himself, the overexaggerated weight of the decision manifesting physically. Then, without warning, he perks back up, opening his mouth to unleash a flurry of Sweet Voice. A single, solid note—deeper, clearly adapted for Gordon's vocal range. Pink bubbles—transitioning to a mellow orange—float gently through the still air. A few stray orbs hit Gordon's face, bringing with it the brief sensation of a caffeine rush minus the jitters. The effects, as with all Sweet Voice effects, are tragically short-lived.

_Pink to orange_ , Gordon thinks, struggling to think of a word that rhymes with orange. "Door hinge"? When he thinks about it, not much rhymes with purple, either. Maybe Tommy's little mnemonic device isn't as accurate as he once thought.

"Like that," Benrey says, proud, as if he demonstrated anything of educational use. Not that it mattered. This isn't a real vocal lesson, and Gordon is under no illusion that a human could produce something analogous to Sweet Voice without significant biotech intervention. "Supreme easy infant tier."

Sweet Voice leaves no residue, but Gordon instinctively wipes his face with the back of his hand. "Christ, warn a guy, won't you?"

"Mmm, maybe _you_ pay attention more, huh?"

"Christ, lay off, I wasn't _ready_ ," Gordon says, and truthfully, he wasn't. But he could be forgiven for expecting this gambit to fail. Reaching into his pants pocket, he grabs a small plastic bag of 10 milliliter septum vials. He fidgets with the Ziploc zipper, suddenly quite self-conscious as he asks, "Can you do that again, but, like, into one of these? For… learning purposes?"

An excuse equal parts transparent and stupid. Each word feels sillier than the last. The pretense shatters like a car window being struck with ceramic from a spark plug. And yet, Benrey's proffers his hand. A deep frown drawn across his face, he accepts one of the vials from Gordon, carefully unscrewing the cap and spitting fresh orbs into it. The Sweet Voice pops against the lip of the vial, transparent liquid dripping down the glass walls and collecting at the base. About 7 milliliters worth before Benrey screws the septum cap back on and wordlessly hands it back.

The thrill of unexpected success is intoxicating—Gordon knows this well. A surge of adrenaline, an increased respiratory rate, the sound of blood rushing past his ears. Symptoms which, in any other context, would've be a surefire sign of a panic attack. What god of fortune did he please, to have caught Benrey in such a magnanimous mood? What name should he pray to, tonight?

Curious, he rolls the vial between his thumb and his forefinger, feeling the weight shift as its contents slosh around. Vaguely, his mind registers that Benrey is speaking again. But it's just mindless chatter, lost amongst the symphony of other background noises—the monotonous whir of the HVAC system, the buzzing fluorescents overhead, the mechanical clunk of an unlocking door, Dr. Keyes's voice beckoning Gordon back outside.

Even if this solidifies his role as communication liaison, Gordon blesses his damn luck.

————————————————————

With a grand total of four days under his belt, Gordon receives his first "paycheck" on Friday afternoon. Barely above minimum wage, counteracted by the fact that it's all under the table. The entire operation is independently run, the pet project of a scientist wealthy and eccentric enough to sink their life savings into this scheme. Without a source of funding, the money will dry up, inevitably. But in the meantime, Gordon can use the cashflow for rent and utilities—especially given his landlord's refusal to grant a moratorium.

After depositing the check at the bank, Gordon returns to his apartment. Being the type to thrive on a schedule, the structure of a work week has already bled into his home life. His living room is spotless—two weeks of clutter, cleared and organized. Laundry neatly folded, trash properly disposed of. In his refrigerator, leftover Chinese food and a Cold One beckon him. 

For the first time in a month, Friday feels like a day worth celebrating.

As he waits for his food to reheat—face pressed dangerously close to the microwave door—his pre-weekend reverie is broken by his cellphone, which vibrates furiously against the coffee table. Typically, he's the one to call Jules, every evening, after dinner. The sight of her name on the caller I.D. fills Gordon with low-grade paranoia. "Hey, Jules." 

"I made a mistake," is her frazzled response, the sound of Joshua's background bawling threatening to drown out her words, "I'm sorry. I was watching the news, but… I wasn't really paying attention. And Joshie saw a soldier shooting one of those, uhm, little screaming alien things."

Portals had been popping up throughout the week, with reports outside of America starting to roll in—from the Gobi desert, to a small Malaysian village, to the outskirts of Perth. Almost exclusively rural or unpopulated areas, with few human casualties incurred before soldiers arrived to handily dispatch the small waves of attacking Xen forces. Compared to the events of Black Mesa, the aliens' behavior appear less coordinated—entering Earth at a steady trickle, rather than a waterfall.

Even the portals are comparatively weak, lasting no more than 7 hours before naturally closing. If the Resonance Cascade was the stone dropped in the pond, these portal storms are the ripples. Smaller and less damaging than the initial wave.

At least, that's what Gordon tells himself.

"I've tried to calm him down, but…" she trails off, another bout of sobs highlighting her unspoken point.

There's a few seconds of hushed, garbled speech, followed by cartoonish sniffling, as Joshua is handed the phone. "Hey, bucko," Gordon says—now, more than ever, cursing the distance between him and his son.

"H-hi, dad."

"So, I heard you saw some scary stuff on TV, today."

"Uh-huh…"

"I'm sorry, bud. People on TV like to exaggerate… Uhh, they make things look scarier than they actually are. But those soldiers? They're—they're tough! Way tougher then those god damn monsters," Gordon is a notoriously poor liar, struggling to stammer out hollow praise for the United States military. Vivid memories of wasting waves of boot boys don't help the matter. But for the sake of calming down his son, he grits his teeth and commits to the narrative. "They're gonna protect you. And they're gonna protect your mom, and grandma, and everyone, okay? I can promise you that." 

Despite the reassuring words, Joshua relapses into a fit of tears. Babbling incoherently, before managing to say, "But they—they h-hurt the animals…"

If a cow had been dismembered on screen, surely Jules would've mentioned it. The difficult reality dawns on Gordon—animal, here, is a misnomer. Joshua isn't scared of the peeper puppies, he's scared for them. Through the eyes of a 5-year-old boy, without any context, the soldiers appear to be combing through fields, mowing down innocent animals.

"Oh, jeez, Joshie. Look, shh, look. Those things are—they're not like dogs, okay?" Gordon pauses, mulling over his next sentence. It's a balancing act, to explain the danger without overselling it. "If the soldiers don't stop them, they could hurt a lot of people."

"But why do they gotta _kill_ them?" Joshua demands, forceful at first, but his voice breaking as he continues, "What if they're just scared? What if—what if they don't know they're hurting people? Like when Mittens bites mom!"

There's a world of difference between a tabby cat bite and a high intensity ultrasonic burst. But such a nuanced distinction might be lost of a kindergartener. "Cats are…" he starts, "You know, they're related to lions and tigers, right? Kind of like cousins. Which means Mittens and a lion share great-great-super-great-grandparents. But the difference is, humans spent thousands and thousands of years teaching cats to be nice. We learned to understand each other. That's called 'domestication'."

It's a massive oversimplification of domestication, and the concept of animal taxonomy. But Gordon doesn't want to bog down the point. "Those animals you see on TV? We don't understand each other. Maybe we could learn, one day! But domestication takes a really, really long time. It can't happen overnight. And in the meantime, the soldiers need to keep people safe. First and foremost. Does that make sense?"

It's difficult to know what a child does or does not absorb. But Joshua's soft "yeah", and the absence of any subsequent crying fits suggests something stuck.

And thus, the remainder of the night, once rich with the promise of rest and relaxation, is spent telling stories. Tales of eccentric strongmen and fire-wielding sorcerers. Of young adventurers, bright-eyed and eager, exploring magical worlds with their dog familiars. For over an hour, Gordon weaves fantasies to distract his son's over-empathetic mind, until the hushed voice of his ex-wife informs him that Joshie has finally fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a headache and a half. Due, in part, to real life issues. And also good old fashioned writer's block.
> 
> The worst part of writing dialogue is all the little interstitials. Bring back FF.net era script fic.


	4. Chapter 4

Life becomes a working pattern. Mornings spent maintaining test equipment, which are in various states of disarray. Bright as chemists and biologists may be, they never take it upon themselves to understand the guts of the analytical instruments they use. So Gordon sinks hours into scavenging unsorted bins for replacement parts, cleaning and readjusting bits and bobbles, performing operational check outs.

The biggest roadblock, he finds, is the inadequate electrical grid situation. Repurposed garages aren't designed to house congested rows of high-energy equipment, each of which drawing enough power to demand its own dedicated circuit. When all is said and done, this is still a rental unit. Hiring a certified electrician to mess with the facility's breaker box, to run new wire and install any necessary infrastructure, would surely violate the terms of the leasing agreement. So despite Gordon's best efforts, more machines remain untouched than not.

When useful maintenance work dries up, Gordon moves on to his personal pet project—getting the tabletop particle accelerator up and running. He can't think of a practical use for it in this rundown sham of a lab. But it keeps his hands busy, at the very least. Occupied, as the other scientists scurry around, running an assortment of tests on Benrey. 

He's typically inclined to ignore the goings-on of The Benrey Project, but boredom-induced curiosity gets the better of him one day, and Gordon decides to shadow one of the tests. Via the CCTV monitor, Gordon watches as two scientists draw blood from Benrey's arm. Benrey, to his credit, makes no sudden movements—strangely obedient as a tourniquet is tied around his upper arm, and a syringe pierces the basilic vein. 

In the main room, the scientists inject the blood sample into a petri dish. Something of an expert on freshly spilled blood, Gordon is intrigued by how abnormally dark it is—a side effect of deoxygenation. One scientist cuts a small length of wire, stripping an inch of sheathing off the end. With a BIC lighter, she heats the exposed copper over the flame for a few seconds, before prodding the blood sample with it. The blood sizzles briefly, a small wisp of water vapor escaping into the air.

Huddling around a computer monitor, the scientists inspect EEG readings—their collective disappointed sighs implying that the test was unsuccessful. In Gordon's professional opinion as a theoretical physicist, the experiment borders on meaningless. But then, what does he know?

Afternoons are Gordon's turn at the helm. Shuffling into Benrey's cage for their scheduled "singing lesson"—a process not unlike pulling teeth. Benrey's not quite as forthcoming as he was during the first lesson, reveling in the small ways he can be a burden. Gordon never would've described the man as chatty before. But now, it's a chore, moving the conversation in the right direction. Everyone becomes talkative when they're in solitary confinement, he supposes.

At one point, Gordon considers bringing some books with him—a gesture of good will, something for Benrey to pass the time with. But he suspects Benrey wouldn't care for Star Trek tie-in novels.

Despite the hassle, Gordon always gets a vial of freshly regurgitated Sweet Voice before the work day ends. Vials which he, in turn, brings to the chemists waiting in the wings. The samples are run through a gamut of preparation steps, before being injected into a chromatograph. With bated breath, the scientists wait, eager for the spectral results. An eagerness that invariably turns to stomping and cursing when their library searches don't match the substance to any known compounds.

"What a headache," Dr. Keyes discloses to Gordon, one Wednesday afternoon. Feet propped on a table, rocking on the back legs of his chair as he watches one of the monitors. The feed is terminally boring—Benrey only ever moving to fidget with the electrode wires. Ever since his second encounter with Gordon, Benrey had taken to sitting, turned away from the cameras. Face obscured from view, as best as he could manage. Clinging to the only semblance of privacy available.

Strange, Gordon had never taken Benrey as a particularly private person.

"Don't say I didn't warn you. That dude's been a walking headache since day one."

Keyes scrubs his face, sighing deeply into the palms of his hands. Mounting frustration incrementally chipping away at the man's affected professionalism. "We started this lab over a month ago. You'd think we'd have something to show for it, by now."

This sits poorly with Gordon. For all the downsides of working in an off-the-grid research lab, one benefit is the lack of overhead. No bureaucratic redlining, no audits—although one could argue that a lack of regulatory compliance was Black Mesa's undoing. That being said, a month is hardly a reasonable project timeline. "Like, I'm not exactly the world's most patient guy. But don't you think that's kind of aggressive?"

Peering through his fingers, Dr. Keyes asks, "Do you watch the news, Dr. Freeman?"

"Uh, sure, sometimes."

"'No answers from top scientists on mysterious portals appearing across globe'. 'Nine dead after alien attack at Kentucky ranch'. 'Negotiations for unified global military force falls apart as United States refuses to lift sanctions on Russia and Iran'." Like a glassy-eyed news anchor, Keyes recites a list of paraphrased headlines. "It's no coincidence that these portals started opening up. I know you aren't a naïve man."

"Look, I'm not going to argue that the Resonance Cascade _didn't_ cause this. But this isn't an extinction level event, man. Don't get me wrong, shit's fucked. But we aren't on some tight deadline, here."

"Maybe not," Keyes says, "But I can't help but worry that you're wrong. I can't help but think that we opened a Pandora's box. That there's something much, much bigger on the horizon. And we need to—we have an _obligation_ to get ahead of it."

Paranoid musings that mirror Gordon's own inner dialogue—a dialogue he's worked so hard to repress. Gordon squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, imagining an array of horrible possibilities, spreading out before him like a spiderweb. "Well, what the hell are you trying to accomplish, anyways?" he asks, eyes snapping back open, "Cut open some rotting headcrab corpses? Microwave some blood samples? Study some genetic freak's glowing saliva?" 

"No… No, this 'Sweet Voice' business is just the tip of the iceberg," Dr. Keyes says, pausing as he gathers his thoughts, "It's the functional immortality. The regeneration, the ability to transmute dead muscle cells into bone and cartilage and flesh, at will. The seemingly limitless source of energy."

With his right hand, Keyes taps twice at his sternum. "I know it's a hard pill to swallow, Dr. Freeman, but this… man. If he killed Nihilanth—and I believe he did—then this man possesses a strength… Something beyond physical strength. Something we will need to harness, if we're to weather the upcoming storm."

————————————————————

Twenty minutes and multiple mortifying attempts at Sweet Voice into their Thursday lesson, and Gordon already feels like a moron. Half-heartedly grunting the same note, over and over, with the same, predictable results. "Can you show me, again?" he asks, cautiously testing the waters, "There's clearly something I'm not getting."

"Little baby bird boy won't eat the knowledge I am… spit into your brain. Man, I'm trying so _much_ to help you out, here. All those guys are listening, out there, and they think you sound bad. But you don't want to practice, you just want my freshly squeezy throat juice," Benrey whines, drawing out his syllables to emphasize his frustration.

"Christ, man, don't—don't call it that!" Gordon's voice nearly cracks as he yells. "I'm a visual learner, alright? Just show me one more time, I _swear_ I'll get it!"

"Uhhhhhh," Benrey drawls for an obscenely long time, "Yeah, sure, okay."

He proffers his hand, curling and uncurling it rapidly, like a toddler trying to grab at a toy. Gordon drops a vial in his palm, and he twirls it between his boney fingers, perpetual frown deepening. Then, bringing the vial to his mouth, he spits—not vibrant orbs, but a thick foamy saliva, that drips from his mouth, agonizingly slowly.

He foists the vial back into Gordon's hands without so much as a smirk. "Throw that in your centripe—fuge…"

"Hey, look, if you want to be a big fucking baby about this, I can just—"

"Mnnneh mmmeh nyeeh nyeh! Nyeh mnneh!"

Although clearly meant as a mocking gesture, Gordon cackles at Benrey's infantile babbling. Clearly, he's in a mood today. Or perhaps, Benrey's patience with this whole charade has finally run its course. Now that's a thought—the nuisance king can't deal what he dishes. Whatever the case, Gordon invokes his favorite part of this job—the right to disengage. Gathering his belongings, he stands to leave.

And for once, Benrey follows suit, jumping to his feet. Forcefully, he plucks the electrodes off his body, each detaching from his skin with a painful sounding 'pop!' Then he marches towards the exit, bare feet padding against the polished concrete floor. "Hey, hey, hey!" Gordon says, grabbing Benrey by the wrist. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Uhm, we leave now or something?"

"'We' nothing, motherfucker. Unless you're ready to play ball, then I'm walking out of here, and you get to sit your ass back down and stare at the wall until tomorrow."

"The view here is bad, though. Said the view would be great good but it's shit. Not worth the rent every night. N-no continental breakfast. Can't bother to bring a guy a bowl of fruit… loot. With _milk_? It's sucks, man. Where's the little chocolate doves every morning on the pillow? No? Nothing?" He wretches his arm free from Gordon's grasp, huffing, "I can't _Fucking_ believe it!"

"Dude, what the hell are you talking about?" Gordon has come to expect a certain level of incoherence from Benrey—thoughts derailed by mixed metaphors and word associations. 

"Bad customer service, walk in here to ask me things! And I'm nice to them and listen, but they don't care. Take my stuff without asking because they're thieves… like _you_."

The vitriol dripping from Benrey's voice throws Gordon for a loop—such a fundamentally human reaction that Gordon wasn't prepared to interrogate. Despite his disaffected demeanor, the testing and isolation are clearly weighing on Benrey. An anger he has the nerve to direct towards Gordon! "Then what are you even doing, here, man?" Gordon asks, more accusatorily than intended, "If you want to leave, none of those guys could exactly stop you."

This garners no response. Instead, Benrey steps closer to the door, nose almost touching the metal. As if he didn’t realize that, even if someone _were_ to open the door, it would swing inward and hit him. He grabs the doorknob and shakes it—an idle jiggle, at first, which quickly devolves into a fierce rattling, accompanied by frantic muttering.

"For Christ's sake, dude," Gordon grabs his wrist, again, yanking him away from the door. Benrey whips his head around to face Gordon. Most of his expressiveness is in his eyes, which bear into Gordon with a frazzled intensity. "Don't pull this shit. You think anyone would choose to let a menace like you go out and harass innocent people?"

Benrey searches Gordon's face, eyes darting around in pursuit of something. Whatever he's looking for, he doesn't find. Shoulders slumping in defeat, Benrey marches back to the center of the room, hoisting himself on the table. He turns his head away from Gordon—a pointed gesture—mumbling half-audible insults under his breath. Petulant, like a child denied their Happy Meal toy. Petulance that grinds Gordon's gears—as if _he's_ responsible for denying Benrey his freedom! 

"Gonna go sulk, now?" he spits, "Big, bad Benrey. Can grow tens times his normal size, but is bested by a lousy door? Why don't you summon your little skeleton buddies to pick the lock for you? Or—or just melt the walls, like you did to that Nihilanth… thing?"

"Wuh—huh?"

"From Xen. The ugly motherfucker with the enormous baby head and gross leech mouth."

Benrey turns his head back to Gordon, eyes flashing with mild recognition at that description. "Oh, yeeeaaah, the big boss! Tool assist, no hit, any percent speedrun, man," he recalls fondly, "End credits minigame was sucks. Good music, though."

This might've been the first verbal confirmation anyone's gotten from Benrey, that he killed the mysterious Xen behemoth—if disjointed game-speak could even qualify as 'confirmation'. 

Something in Gordon's gut twists involuntarily. The close cousin of fear, the next door neighbor of relief. To imagine a force so powerful, it could single-handedly maintain an interdimensional rift between worlds. A four-story tall alien giga-beast, a psionic emperor of Xen, felled within seconds of facing Benrey. Despite Keyes' insistence, it was a possibility that Gordon wasn't prepared to accept. Wasn't ready for how it paints his memories of Benrey with a different brush.

For all his vicious, mocking threats, Benrey never dispensed that sort of reality-bending power against the Science Team. In fact, as Gordon reflects on the aftermath of the fight, he had nary a scratch on him. In great thanks, no doubt, to the HEV suit. But even Tommy and Bubby and Dr. Coomer, although drenched in a combination of sweat and gore, had emerged from Xen unharmed, as well.

Had Benrey thought the Science Team so weak, that he could play with them, like a cat playing with its food? Why the fetch quest? Why the skeletal minions? Why the whole dog-and-pony show?

Not that Gordon is complaining—at least he's not dead in some remote corner of Xen, body half-melted like a grim snowman under the warm March sun.

"Then don't act like I'm keeping you here, dude," Gordon says, swallowing the more complicated questions that threaten to surge from his throat, "I'm not falling for it. I don't believe for a _second_ that you'd stay in this room, unless you really wanted to."

Benrey looks away from Gordon again, clamming up—a signal to Gordon that today is a wash. Even as he's peeling back layers of truth, the mechanisms of Benrey's mind—his thoughts, his intentions—remain shrouded in mystery. Is there really something to be gained in this cramped, empty room, that Benrey couldn't find elsewhere? Or could it be that the truth of Benrey's powers are just as enigmatic and untamable to him, as it is to Gordon and the others?

Silently, Gordon gestures to one of the cameras—a sign for someone to open the door. Tension teases at his temples. Maybe he'll visit that microbrewery, next door. 

————————————————————

Most lunches are quick 15 minute breaks, stolen at whatever time is most convenient. But Friday lunch with the Science Team was a tradition—inasmuch as "3 times in a row" makes a tradition. The four of them walk along the main road, two blocks north where a Halal truck is stationed. Gordon typically goes for a lamb gyro, but today, he's feeling falafel, drizzled in a cold tzatziki sauce. After five dollars and a few minutes of waiting, he joins his friends on a nearby bench, squeezed between Coomer and Tommy.

Idle chatter fills the air—Tommy recounting some misadventure with Sunkist, Bubby complaining about minor inconveniences of modern life. Today, the conversation passes through Gordon's brain like sand through a sieve. With a plastic fork and knife, he bisects his remaining falafel. The fried, golden exterior giving way to the crumbly chickpea innards.

Although seemingly simply at first glance, Tommy is a deeply perceptive man. And when there comes a natural lull in conversation, he turns to Gordon, voice full of nonjudgmental concern as he asks, "Are you feeling alright, Mr. Freeman?"

Yesterday's conversation with Benrey had left Gordon feeling uneasy. Despite his attempt to hide his feelings, Gordon reads like an open book, it seems. Turning his fork between his thumb and forefinger, Gordon struggles to find the words to express himself. At some point, early on, Gordon had decided to keep Benrey's existence a secret from the Science Team. As if the knowledge was some burden that Gordon felt responsible to bear, alone. In retrospect, the decision was silly. But the more time that passed, the more difficult it became for Gordon to reveal the information to his friends—embarrassed, perhaps, by his initial vow of secrecy.

"Pink to orange," he says, pushing rice around the Styrofoam clamshell, "You can read Sweet Voice, right, Tommy? Does 'pink to orange' mean anything?"

Tommy takes a small bite of his pita bread, chewing it thoughtfully. He doesn't speak until he swallows. "Well. Was it, uhm… was it dark orange, like rust? Or bright, like a freshly picked Arizona tangerine?"

Gordon was a man of science to the core. And although he envied people who excelled at both the arts and sciences, Gordon was not one of those people. Just as some balk at the idea of letters in math, Gordon balks at the idea of identifying different shades of color. "Jeez, I don't know, man," he says.

"Why do you ask?"

Gordon grimaces, unprepared to tell another lie. "It was… Uh, I had a dream. Well, more like a nightmare. About Benrey." A believable enough excuse. And Tommy, bless his soul, nods silently, taking Gordon's words at face value. Although Gordon doesn't miss the way Tommy furrows his brow, ever so slightly. Mild distress born from sadness and regret.

"Tommy, you were… friends with Benrey, weren't you?" Gordon asks, "Guess I never got to, I don't know… Apologize isn't the right word. Maybe, like, check on how you're feeling?"

Setting down his utensils, a terse frown tugs at Tommy's lips. His hands move to his legs, tugging at the fabric of his slacks anxiously. "Thanks, Mr. Freeman," he says, a troubling lack of eagerness in his tone, "I think—I feel okay. We did everything we _could_ do, so I try not to feel bad."

Dr. Coomer, ever the one for fatherly reassurance, reaches over Gordon's back to place a hand on Tommy's shoulder. "We miss him every day, Tommy," he says, solemnly, ignoring the stubborn refrain of 'I don't!' from Bubby. "But it's important for us to remember that things _had_ to happen this way. And we simply _must_ move forward."

"That's quite… deterministic of you, Dr. Coomer."

"Gordon, I am _full_ of determination!"

Far be it from Gordon to question people's philosophical views—he's a bit of a compatibilist himself. At the very least, Tommy seems reassured by this comment, nervous hands picking up his utensils again, to tear at a piece of chicken. "So how _did_ you and Benrey become friends, anyways?" Gordon asks, curiosity and a big mouth winning out over tact, once again. "It seemed like you two knew each other from before the Resonance Cascade."

"Benrey got assigned to Section C in May, so we would eat lunch together," Tommy pauses, revising the statement in his head, "Uhm. Well. I would eat, and he would sit there. And sometimes get me free sodas from the vending machine. He said he wanted—uhm, he wanted to learn how to play Beyblades with me!"

For all his oblique references to Game Stop cashier friends and various after-work plans, the idea of Benrey existing outside the context of Black Mesa is a foreign notion to Gordon. It makes him laugh, reflexively, shaking his head as he says, "Strange. And here I thought the guy existed with the sole purpose of pissing me off."

"Oh, blah, blah, blah! Look at me, Doctor Gordon Freeman, watch as the world revolves around my enormous ego," Bubby says, shooting Gordon an adversarial grin, "Shut up, you solipsistic shit head!"

"Gordon, Benrey was a respected member of the Black Mesa Security Team. I'm sure he had a lot of friends amongst the staff!"

At this, Gordon tilts his head up, squinting at the sky. Clear blue. The sun, dead center, roasting the earth as it turns on its magnetic spit. To his left, Tommy cracks open a can of Diet Dr. Pepper and loudly downs the contents. As if compelled by the siren song of Tommy's slurping, Bubby and Coomer follow suit—the hiss of pent up carbonation escaping a can, followed by smacking lips and theatrical gulps.

This poses an interesting question—if Benrey is neither a human nor a Xen alien, then where did he come from? Could Gordon track down Josh, the Game Stop cashier? Given the mostly-vacated state of Albuquerque, Gordon's not inclined to start that particular goose chase. Or maybe he had other friends amongst the Black Mesa staff—assuming any survived. 

Pulling the tab of his own drink, Gordon takes a polite sip. Refreshing in the face of the early summer heat. Every monster has its origin story. The question is, where did Benrey's story start?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Trek novelizations are monetized fanfiction for boomer dads.


	5. Chapter 5

Gordon has always held a romantic notion of detective work. An unbridled pursuit of truth in the face of adversity. In many ways, it paralleled science. Follow the right clues, work out the right puzzles, solve the right proofs. All paths lead to the answer—one must simply be willing to walk long enough.

Reality is much less convenient.

On Monday, he subjects dozens of disinterested coworkers to interrogations, probing for information on Benrey's origins. Predictably, the other scientists meet Gordon's questions with noncommittal shrugs and solemn shakes of the head. Amongst the Black Mesa staff, guards and scientists typically refrained from interacting with one another in a casual capacity. A strict class delineation, an unspoken social divide. Something Gordon never adhered to, personally, but understood existed.

Of the ex-Black Mesa staffers wrangled into Keyes' operation, guards were in short supply. Only a small handful had survived the Resonance Cascade, and even fewer were swayed by Keyes' mission statement—unwilling to play scarecrow at an industrial warehouse for chump change. So, it didn't raise any red flags, when the guards Gordon questioned couldn't remember Benrey. Black Mesa had multiple hundred of employees on record. A person could go decades without running into someone outside their core group of coworkers. Especially given Benrey's unique clearance status, it's unlikely he interacted with the rank-and-file guards.

That fact is major point of consternation. To work at Sector C required a prohibitive levels of authorization. Prior to onboarding, Gordon spent the better half of a year providing contacts and credentials, waiting for the green light from whatever company Black Mesa outsourced their background checks to.

To think that Benrey had undergone a similar vetting process boggles the mind. Who were his character references? What education did he receive? What was his criminal background, his birthplace, his proof of citizenship?

Unfortunately, very little remained from Black Mesa, by way of digital records. Anything stored on a site server was lost to the annals of history, including employee records. And without the ability to access the internal Black Mesa network, anything stored at a remote server was equally inaccessible. Only a handful of computers—primarily personal laptops—and a box of assorted external hard drives survived.

So, what Gordon does have access to was emails. And within those emails, the names of employees belonging to various distribution lists.

A preliminary search in the Microsoft Outlook address book yields no results for the name "Benrey", nor for any similar iterations of the name—no Boppers or Bennys. Bizarre, if one assumes Benrey isn't lying about his name. Call Gordon biased, but the idea of Benrey forging a passport to maintain such a charade seems painfully on-brand.

Once emails prove to be a dead end, Gordon resorts to a "Hail Mary" approach, scrounging through the content of the unclaimed laptops, praying to find a clue. Luck strikes in the form of a folder containing two years worth of security schedules. Simple Excel spreadsheets, sorted by "date created", designating the critical sectors and subsectors of Black Mesa. Guards were assigned by location and shift, which changed by the month. A comically unsecure and low-tech way of managing such sensitive personnel information. But the point is moot, now.

If the Resonance Cascade happened in May, Gordon reckons, Benrey should be listed under the assignees for Sector C. Scrolling through the spreadsheet, Gordon finds a smattering of names, both familiar and unfamiliar. None of which started with the letter "B". And yet, that detail played second fiddle to an even greater mystery—a conspicuously empty field, meant for the name of whomever was assigned to guard the hallway leading to the Anti-Mass Spectrometer lab. Although people were assigned to second and third shift, first shift—objectively the most critical—was entirely unmanned.

Backtracking through older schedules, a troubling pattern emerges—every month, high traffic areas in restricted zones, left without a security guard. An omission so glaring, it bordered on deliberate. As if a ghost was haunting the Black Mesa payroll.

Of all the empty assignments, one nags at the corners of Gordon's brain—"April, Psi Lab entrance". A small, comparatively remote lab with a small staff. Although technically regarded as a restricted zone, the lab itself was benign by Black Mesa standards. No human experimentation, no messing with forces of interdimensional nature. Just a bog standard crew of physicists, testing the limits of concepts like entanglement and the observer effect. Research, all a part of Black Mesa's nascent investigation into quantum computing.

The secrecy was less a screen for unethical or dangerous projects, but rather, a precaution against trade secrets slipping into the hands of competitors like Microsoft and IBM.

But the lab's purpose wasn't what interested Gordon.

Though eclipsed by the Resonance Cascade and subsequent Xen invasion a month later, the Psi Lab was the center of a minor emergency, itself. The official story chalked it up to an electrical system malfunction. There'd been one reported injury—a computer engineer who had suffered from a severe electric shock. While not immediately fatal, she required immediate medical intervention, being transported to the nearest hospital where she was monitored for nerve damage and heart arrhythmia. 

Gordon barely knew the woman, nor did he know any of the other scientists and engineers on her team. And yet, he remembers the incident with stunning vividness. Remembers pacing the breakroom waiting for the site-wide lockdown to lift, wracked with a bone-deep anxiety. An anxiety far beyond the abstract concern one feels when a stranger is injured. 

The memory spurs something in Gordon's chest, now—the emotional equivalent of a Shepard tone. A crescendoing feeling of unease that can never resolve.

By Tuesday afternoon, having exhausted all leads shy of opening a phonebook and calling every "Josh" on the list, Gordon concedes that his investigation is an abject failure. Leaving him with nothing to show, but more questions and severe agita.

————————————————————

Gordon briefly entertains the idea of bringing his old PS2 to work. But the thought of wheeling a television around on a cart like a school teacher, hooking up the console and controllers, was far too daunting a task. So instead, he grabs his old backpack—unused since his undergrad days—and fills it with books and colored pencils and an entire ream of printer paper. A deck of cards, too, for good measure.

Peace offerings. It's Wednesday morning, almost a full week since Gordon had last spoken with Benrey. They split on somewhat of a sour note. And god knows, it's difficult to judge what Benrey will hold a grudge about. Shrugging off bullets and threats of being gutted like a fish, while quietly seething for days over a dick slip.

Not that Benrey deserves a gesture of goodwill, Gordon is eager to remind himself. But maintaining a decent rapport will make this job easier.

Dr. Keyes raises an eyebrow at Gordon, as he strolls through the warehouse, overstuffed backpack in tow. But ultimately, Keyes makes no objections. He's not so draconian and cruel, as to actively deny Benrey something as harmless as a deck of cards or a Star Trek novella.

Like a bored high schooler in detention, Gordon finds Benrey hunched over the table, head pillowed by his arms. "Hey, man," Gordon says, plainly. At the sound of his voice, Benrey lifts his head, ever so slightly, to peer over his elbow. Dull, expressionless eyes betray nothing about his mood.

Setting the backpack down on the second chair, Gordon beings rifling through its contents. "I, uh… Brought you some stuff. Figure it must suck, sitting here for a month straight with nothing to do." The words tumble stupidly from his mouth—what a blindingly obvious thing to point out! "Not exactly a Playstation, but it's better than nothing."

One by one, Gordon pulls items from his bag, meticulously organizing them on the table. Last but not least, he grabs the playing cards—a classic, blue Bicycle deck. Knocking the empty background to the floor, Gordon takes a seat. "Ever play Solitaire on the computer? I was more of a Minesweeper guy, myself. Or that, uh, space pinball game. But there's a certain satisfying logic to Solitaire," he rambles, riffling the cards over and over. A nervous habit, filling the silence with the sound of plastic-laminated paper slapping against each other. 

"Back in high school, we used to play Egyptian Ratscrew constantly. It was, like, the go-to game during Science Olympiad meets." Idly, Gordon begins to deal the cards into two even piles, a nostalgic smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. "Probably because it involved hitting each other."

"Truant teen, getting into fights all the time, huh? A real violent guy. Hittin' people for fun," Benrey mutters, voice muffled into his arms, "You like hurtin' other people, don't'cha?"

_"What?"_ Gordon balks at the accusation, brain reeling as he tries to reverse engineer Benrey's comment. "N-no? Jesus, man! I mean—it's just a game about slapping a big pile of cards. Sometimes you wind of slapping each other's hands. It's—it's fun!"

If this was an attempt to ruffle Gordon's feathers, it was a resounding success. And yet, Benrey did not revel in it. No smug laughter, no biting counter-retort. Instead, he nestles further into his arms, forehead pressed into the crux of his left elbow. Gordon finds himself deflating, as well, having expected a verbal tête-à-tête. Defensive energy replaced with a strange hollowness.

Just a regular misunderstanding, huh?

"Right. Well, uh, anyways," Gordon stammers, trying to regain his previous momentum, "How about we play War, instead? War's pretty simple.

"I'm sick of _games_!" Benrey says, suddenly, an unnatural and strained emphasis on the word 'game'. 

"That's funny," Gordon says, unable to control a wry grin from worming its way on his face, "Because _I_ seem to remember you throwing a little bitch-fit over not getting to play God of War, or whatever."

"Not Gear… Uh, G-god of War!" he stammers, then sits up, stock straight, "Heavenly Sword! It's _not_ a rip-off. Me and Josh was… We were gonna bike down to Game Stop. Just got a new fixie bike with my last paycheck. But then you came and ruined it for me! Such a long week… And I'm just—and I'm just doing my job, alright? Okay, man? But all the pieces of the puzzle keep falling apart."

"Alright, alright!" Gordon yields, hands up in mock surrender, unwilling to relitigate that disastrous argument. "Sorry I brought it up!"

"But that's different than _this_!"

On some instinctive level, Gordon knew Benrey wasn't referring to literal games. Human language wasn't the guy's strong suit—his thoughts typically expressed as a stream of oblique references and half-jokes. The word 'game', readily available in Benrey's mind, represented his view of the entire situation at hand. Frustration at his captivity, and all the experimentation it entailed. "Well, what the hell do you want me to do about it?"

"Uhhh, be nice, maybe? Please?"

"I—I _am_ being nice!" Gordon almost yells, gesturing to the pile of trinkets laid out on the table, "Why do you think I brought you all this shit? I'm trying to make things easier for you!"

"You're still mad, though," Benrey says, "So mad… Look! You can hear—can hear your teething grinding together, man. Gonna wear down the… enamel."

Gordon snorts. Truth be told, he's a bit jealous. Jealous, imaging a life so removed from any sense of personal responsibility. Consequences but a speedbump in the unending race of life. Every night, the faces of men Gordon's murdered haunt his dreams. And here is Benrey, with his implicit demand for forgiveness. "What, you thought I wasn't gonna be pissed at you, anymore? That's not how shit works when you try to kill someone!"

"Told you to go back, bro. Could've just gone _back_ but you wanted a big… a big finale? Wanted me to be mean. I dunno what to say, maybe if you listened, 'stead of talking all the time?"

"Yeah, well, listening's a two-way street, man." His response is tepid. After all, Benrey _had_ told Gordon to go back—to Earth, presumably. Words that, at the time, felt more like a foreword to destruction. Warning signs at the vestibule of hell. And yet, little had Gordon known, the true devil had already been slain; the Resonance Cascade reversed. All the fighting and fear and pain, inconsequential to the greater plot. To think Benrey might've told Gordon to "go back" in earnest ties Gordon's gut into knots.

Gordon grabs for his hand of cards. Better to deflect than fall down this rabbit hole. "So, are you gonna play, or what?"

A pause, long and exhausted, precedes Benrey reaching for his own hand. Resigned, he says, "Sure, yeah, okay."

Despite its name, War is a pleasantly hypnotic game. Simple, repetitive hand motions, bordering on rhythmic. Flip the top card, face-up on the table. The rules of engagement are equally simple—the player with the higher number claims both cards. Ties are settled by dealing again. Two players, trading small victories and defeats, until one person holds the entire deck. Again and again, for the remainder of the work day, they play in a silence that approaches amicable. Winning cards, losing cards, shuffling and re-dealing the deck.

After half a dozen rounds—had Gordon bothered to keep track—he might've found it odd that he'd won every game. Might've commented on the statistical improbability of it all. But the mindless rhythm has him entranced.

Benrey plays a Six of Hearts. Gordon plays a Ten of Spades. For the seventh time today, Gordon lays claim to the entire deck. Wordlessly, he shuffles again.

————————————————————

The setting sun peaks through Gordon's curtains—a reddish glow cast across his living room. He reclines on his sofa, feet propped on one armrest and head propped on the other. The evening news acts as background noise for tonight's dinner—a delicious coconut curry that Tommy recommended. Mild enough for Gordon's sensibilities. And a refreshing change from his typical homecooked fare of spaghetti or grocery store chicken tenders.

The images flashing across the television screen don't register in his mind. Not immediately. Early onset fatigue turns the news into a slideshow of blurry, indistinct images. But his brain catches up, eventually. Decodes the scene unfolding before him.

Drone footage, panning over a familiar cityscape. Plumes of dark smoke pollute the air—a sinister omen. On the street, boot boys storm through busy shopping districts in tight formation, guns unholstered. The news crew follows the soldiers at a safe distance, unprepared for their new role as war journalists. Try as he may, the cameraman fails to spare the viewer from the carnage—burning vehicles, broken storefront windows, mangled corpses both human and alien alike. 

This Wednesday evening, a mysterious portal opens over Baltimore, Maryland. Unleashing upon the population an army of alien predators, which terrorize the streets at the height of rush hour. By nightfall, the siege yielded more casualties than all other publicly-known portal storms, combined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the Half Life universe, no one has computer passwords. This is because everyone in Black Mesa is fundamentally honest. ^~^


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up. This chapter gets a bit grisly. Imagine me, tapping the "unethical medical procedures" tag. See end of chapter notes for trigger warnings. 
> 
> Hopefully it doesn't feel excessive or unwarranted. I'm not in the business of being grim for no reason.

Sleep did little to fend off Gordon's bone-deep exhaustion. His dreams were plagued by nightmares—an emotional wound reopened by last night's news broadcast. Not to mention the hours spent on the phone with his ex-wife, fielding her increasingly likely anxieties.

She begged him, at first. Begged him to drive up north and stay with her parents. Should worse come to worst, she argued, Gordon should be here for Joshua. Then, the topic shifted to contingency plans. Neither of them were preppers, but Gordon had some advice on gun ownership to share. Realistically, the events in Baltimore would create a run on weapons. Not to mention, the bureaucratic overhead involved with acquiring a license would take months. But at the very least, talk of plans helped ease Jules' rightfully terrified mind.

On the taxi ride to work, the radio newscaster reports on the state of affairs. Unmanageable numbers of alien forces barraged Baltimore throughout the night. Whole swathes of the city—primarily the exurbs—were completely overrun. Officially deemed dead zones, with any remaining civilians left to fend for themselves. Around 5am MST, another portal had opened above Sapporo, Japan, necessitating the mobilization of American troops abroad. Through the rear window of the taxi, the morning sun shines on Gordon's skin. A reminder of the world's indifference in the face of the hell that's been unleashed upon its inhabitants.

Dropped off at the street corner, Gordon walks across the parking lot. From a distance, he spots Dr. Keyes, who rushes to intercept him. The man emits a frenetic energy, hand clasping onto Gordon's shoulder with a bruising force. Without a moment to breathe, Keyes ushers Gordon inside. The other scientists scurrying around like rats—disconnecting the equipment Gordon had so lovingly maintained, and wheeling it aside. "What the hell's going on?" he asks.

"Had I known how little time we had, I wouldn't have wasted it playing games," Dr. Keyes says. Not accusatory, but rather, as an admission of defeat. "Dr. Freeman, could you convince Benrey to come out here, please?"

With Keyes' request in mind, the scene at the warehouse is ripe with ominous subtext. Whipping his head around, Gordon reassesses the room, noting the operating table and makeshift cubicle curtain—presumably borrowed from their sister warehouse, next door. Loitering near the CCTV monitors are two jackbooted men, Berettas on their hips and N100 masks on their faces. "Jesus Christ," Gordon says, wide-eyed when he looks at Keyes again, "You're fucking with me, man. You're not thinking of… This is a _lot_ , don't you think?"

Something dark flickers across Keyes' face—a mixture of regret and determination. "Last night, we saw the limits of what our government can handle. The military can drop bombs, raze cities. But they don't have the technology to fight a biblical alien plague, en mass."

"Any you think _Benrey_ can?"

"You know, better than I do, what he's capable of. If history can be written in an instant, isn't it incumbent upon us to seize that power? Isn't it irresponsible not to try?"

Any counterargument dies in Gordon's throat, unable to square his moral objections with his stubborn unwillingness to defend Benrey in any capacity. "I, uh… Fuck. I guess," he manages to say over the roar of his own blood rushing through his ears.

Past the harried scientists, Gordon walks, tugging at the retractable badge that's hooked on his slacks. He swipes the RFID reader, enters the security code, pushes through the door. The bright, sterile overhead light nearly blinds him. Behind him, the door locks, ringing with an eerie sense of finality.

Benrey had made good use of the gifts Gordon gave him yesterday. Printer paper litters the table, each one decorated with a unique colored sketch. Mostly geometric shapes—squares and circles and triangles intersecting one another. On the floor, as a monument to precarity, stands a four-story house of cards. And Benrey, himself, is sitting in his chair, nose deep in one of the Star Trek novellas. "Yo," Benrey says, without sparing Gordon a glance, "Been, uhhh, thinkin'. They should make these into movies."

"Would you believe me if I said there's a whole TV show?"

Benrey hums approvingly. He licks his thumb and forefinger, and flips to the next page. "The doctor reminds me of you. Doctor Bones? Always, uhm, harshin' the mellow."

"What the shit? I don't— Just because I don't let you get away with whatever the hell you want, doesn't mean I—" Gordon's voice hitches as he speaks, feeling overly defensive. A cold sweat forms along his hairline, dripping between his shoulder blades. "Fuck, who the hell even says 'harshing the mellow'?"

"I says. All the time, now. Gordon Buzzkill."

Not as clever as Benrey's other surname-related gags, but Gordon laughs in spite of himself. In spite of everything. The faint echo of a smile flashes across Benrey's face before he returns to reading. Strange—Gordon figured that, devoid of the emotional connection one has from watching the television show, the books would be quite boring. And yet, Benrey is gripped, finger tracing and retracing lines as he reads.

It would be rude to interrupt, especially when he's so invested. Gordon's arms dangle at his sides, unnaturally heavy, as though someone had strapped weights to him. Could he stand here forever, and forget the world outside these walls? Could he encase this moment in amber, eternally protected from the inconvenient future? Benrey turns another page. The HVAC systems chugs to life. 

"The game's over, man," Gordon finally says. Words thick and bitter, like oil spilling from his lips. "It's time for you to get out of here."

There's an expectant look about Benrey, as if he's waiting for the punchline. A warranted skepticism. Gordon had made quite a show it, after all, mocking the idea of setting Benrey free. It's only when Gordon gestures to the cameras—the universal signal for someone to open the door—that Benrey stands up.

The door opens and Gordon leaves, the soft padding of feet trailing behind him. Wordlessly, he lures Benrey with the promise of freedom, directly into poachers' hands. A scuffle breaks out, and Gordon flinches. "Uh, n-no, touching, please, sir!" Benrey says, mild panic seeping into his voice. When Gordon turns around, he sees the two jackbooted guards flanking Benrey. One grabs his arm, and the other grabs his nape, trying to steer him. Digging his heels into the floor provides no resistance—bare feet have little traction against a polished floor—and Benrey stumbles forward, guided by force towards the makeshift operating area. "Wuh-uhm, please? Thank you? I, uh…"

The physicality escalates as Benrey begins to thrash, using his free arm to strike one of the men. Based on size and numbers alone, Benrey's at a disadvantage. And despite all the otherworldly powers he possesses, strength doesn't appear to be one of them. So instead, he relies on old tricks—tranquilization via Sweet Voice.

It was a gamble to assume that a respirator would block the neurological effects of Sweet Voice. And one that paid off, neither man phased as they force Benrey onto the operating table.

Once maneuvered onto his back, a flock of younger scientists swarm the scene, eager to pitch in. Forcing his arms to his sides, they restrain Benrey's wrists with padded straps. Followed by his ankles, and knees, and waist. "What's with this ta-a-ape?" Benrey whines, pulling against the restraints as he fails to sit up. "Want to leave! My friend and I are trying to _leave_ , to go to— uh, go outside. So let me up now." 

The request is met with a thick piece of cloth wedged into his mouth. Despite the gag, his rambling picks up speed, desperate words muffled into total incoherence.

"I understand if you don't want to watch this." Gordon startles, unaware that Keyes was next to him. The man levels Gordon a pitying look. "I won't force you to stay. But I think your presence would provide us some extra security."

Whatever than means—Gordon is beyond questioning the subtext behind Keyes' words. A rational man would've walked. Gone outside, busied himself. But instead, Gordon approaches the operating table, a spectator in his own body.

Was this always the foregone conclusion? Is this the only way to truly understand someone—to spread them across a butcher's block, to cut them into pieces, to itemize their innards? Gordon stares down at Benrey, meets his wild gaze. This physical body, this human form; it's just a facsimile. The repairable, reusable, disposable puppet of some invisible puppeteer. And yet, for once, he looks exposed. Expression wrought with something approximating fear, muffled speech reaching a fever pitch.

The world cascades towards an event horizon, the gravity of the situation dilating the moment to a single Planck time.

"Calm down, man," Gordon says, and is shocked when Benrey's thrashing subsides.

The two guards back up, weapons drawn. Fingers off the trigger, barrels pointed down, but alert. Sparing Gordon a grateful smile, Dr. Keyes directs his scientists to begin the procedure. A man, no older than Gordon, steps forward, taking a pair of scissors to Benrey's thin, white shirt. The fabric cuts away, exposing his bare torso. The spectacle of a legitimate operation is completely abandoned. There is no anesthesia, no cleaning of the planned incision site. An older woman steps forward and presses the blade of an electric scalpel against Benrey's skin.

Having shot countless men to death—rendered their faces unrecognizable with the number of bullets he riddled them with—Gordon figured he was past being squeamish. But as the scalpel pierces flesh, he squirms. An incision draw from shoulder to sternum, and then again, from the other shoulder.

By function, the electric scalpel reduces the amount of bleeding from an incision. Producing a high frequency current, the blade cauterizes the tissue, closing the small blood vessels immediately. Gordon resents the tool—resents the scientists' choice to use it. In a spiteful fit, he wishes they had let the blood gush freely from Benrey's wounds. Let it spill over and stain the concrete floor. 

Then, his feelings oscillate—up and down, positive and negative—matching the beat of his own heart. In his mind's eye, Gordon recalls the sensation of being held down, himself. The hands on his shoulders, the whirring of a bone saw, and the hot, white, burning pain. A pain that radiates from a single point and infects the entire body. The pain of something lost—of something forcible taken.

The feeling of nails digging into his forearm drags Gordon back to the present. That, and the sound of people yelling over one another. 

Benrey's left hand, unrestrained, tightens around Gordon's right wrist. The padded medical strap meant to keep Benrey's arm immobile is nowhere to be found. Not snapped through sheer force, not seared away or melted. It's simply gone. Despawned, like a video game asset.

Looking at Benrey, Gordon is drawn in by the intensity of his expression. Eyes wide, nostrils flared, jaw clasped tightly around the cloth gag. There's fear and pain, but these feelings play second fiddle to something else. A more complicated emotion, impossible to convey through facial expressions alone. And yet, Gordon is transfixed—a cryptographer trying to crack the ultimate ciphertext.

One of the armed guards intervenes, forcing Benrey to loosen his grip. Without the hand to anchor him, Gordon stumbles backwards. Other scientists clamor forward, filling the vacuum, desperate to regain control of the situation.

Nausea hits Gordon like an 18-wheeler—emotional reaction transformed into a physiological response. He throws his arms back, searching for a solid surface to steady himself against. Instead, he finds a medical cart. A narrow, unsteady thing that wobbles beneath his weight. Under hand, he feels an array of surgical tools, and in a disoriented rage, he grabs the rib spreader. Brandishing it like a weapon against Dr. Keyes and the other scientists, he yells, "We're—we're fucking _done_ here. All of this shit! It's _done_ , alright? You're fuckin', you're—you're scientists! Figure something _else_ out!"

As if to punctuate his point, Gordon knocks the remaining surgical tools off the cart, scattering them across the floor. A puerile gesture, but deeply satisfying, nonetheless. Without waiting for a response, he turns on heel and storms towards the warehouse lobby.

————————————————————

Gordon stumbles across the parking lot, the initial rush of righteous rage replaced by a sensation of lightheadedness. "Fuck!" he bellows and spikes the rib spreader against the pavement. It bounces once—insomuch as a metal tool can bounce—and skids beneath a parked U-Haul van. Dizziness catches up with him, egged on by the unbearable heat of the rising sun. So he sits on the curb—hunched over, head pressed to his knees, willing his blood to flow back into his brain.

"Hey, uh, Gordon? Are you feeling alright?" a good-natured voice asks.

A familiar man towers over him, silhouetted by the sun. Lab coat slung over his shoulder, a cigarette pinched between his forefinger and middle finger. "Wouldn't have taken you as a smoker, Darnold."

"I'm, well… I _had_ quit. But after the whole Resonance Cascade thing. And now, with all these portal storms. It's hard to settle my nerves." Frowning, Darnold flicks the cigarette, looking increasingly self-conscious as the embers trail to the ground. "Oh, I shouldn't be doing this. I know I shouldn't!"

On impulse, he drops the half-smoked cigarette and snuffs it out with his dress shoe, leaving behind a smear of burnt paper and ash. The sight of it causes Darnold to grimace. "Uh, guess I shouldn't be littering, either." 

On a better day, Gordon would've laughed. Instead, he says, thoughtlessly, "I'm kind of glad to see you're struggling with this shit."

Based on Darnold's affronted expression, Gordon realizes he should elaborate. "I don't mean… I'm—I'm struggling, too! I just mean, it's nice. That someone else feels the same way. Or, okay, 'nice' isn't the right word. It's reassuring."

"You're welcome?" Darnold says with an inflection of uncertainty. Without a smoke to occupy his hands, he becomes restless, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. The dance of an anxious man. Gordon puts the guy out of his misery and offers him a seat, patting the empty curb to his right. 

Before them stand the two rental warehouses—mundane symbols of modern life. Plain and utilitarian in design, with nothing to suggest their ugly purpose. Beyond the warehouses lies an acre of desert, then a smattering of trailer homes. "What do you make of this shit?" Gordon asks, making a broad, sweeping motion with his arm.

"What part, exactly?"

"All of it. The whole 'underground operation', what do you think?"

"Uh, well. I think, for what they're trying to accomplish, this place is critically understaffed and underequipped. And I don't see how it's financially solvent," Darnold pauses, chewing on his lip, "But, well. They have me synthesizing alien antivenom, which is a step-up from Mixology. So, as long as I'm getting money for rent, I'm not complaining."

At this, Gordon cracks a smile—he can relate to the blind drive for a paycheck. "What _are_ we trying to accomplish?"

"Oh, some highfalutin goal. Saving the world through science, or whatever," Darnold says with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Nothing that isn't already being done at 10 times the scale by some government agency. Not that it matters to most people here. I swear, some of these Black Mesa vets have real delusions of godhood. Serious megalomaniacs!"

"Given Black Mesa's track record, even if we _did_ discover something world-altering, I'm sure we'd figure out a way to fuck it up disastrously. Cause some galactic mass extinction event."

Darnold covers his mouth to laugh, mildly ashamed to find Gordon's comment so funny. "If you don't mind me asking—no one in my building knows what your group's working on. Everybody's so hush-hush about it. Obviously I can't, uh, force you to tell me. But you don't exactly have an NDA, either."

As invasive and nosy as the Science Team is, they've never pestered Gordon for details about work. In fact, during their lunchtime sojourns, the topic of 'work' rarely came up. A fact which Gordon is retroactively quite grateful for. Because, when confronted about his job, he realizes he has no pre-planned lie. "We're investigating some… thing. A live specimen," he stumbles, trying to remain ambiguous. Whether or not he breathes, or eats, or can die by conventional means, Benrey is still alive. For all the unknown variables and uncracked codes, this, Gordon is certain of.

"Ah, I see… Just more alien stuff. Guess I expected something a bit more novel," Darnold says, unable to mask his disappointment. "Based on how you came storming out of the building, I guess it's not going well?"

An understatement, to say the least. To describe what happened as anything less than an "attempted vivisection" would be criminally underplaying it. The feeling in Gordon's chest, once outwardly directed rage, becomes an inward facing guilt. Guilt, not just about today, but about everything. All his past excuses—insistence of Benrey's inhumanity, of his unworthiness of pity—ring hollow and cruel.

Gordon stares at his right arm, at the small red marks where Benrey's nails dug into his skin. Slowly, he clenches and unclenches his fist. "What would you do, if your job asked you to do something unethical? And I mean, some real fucked up, vile shit."

"Oh," Darnold says, without the slightest hesitation, "I'd probably just quit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings. Medical restraints, attempted vivisection, and brief flashback/allusion to amputation.
> 
> Hachi machi.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fr the amount of times I seesawed on removing this chapter from the draft is unreal. Maybe an editor would've slapped my little pizza hands away. But without oversight, I always choose to indulge. So enjoy a chapter where the author shoehorns unnecessary lore to the detriment of everyone else ^~^
> 
> Also, do you hear that tapping? It's me pointing at the "extremely fictionalized science" tag. Don't get it twist, folks, I a genu-wine hack and fraud.

"The basic principle of the 'observer effect' states that the very act of observing a phenomenon affects its behavior. Classical mechanical examples help to demonstrate this effect pretty intuitively. Imagine measuring the temperature of a surface using a thermocouple. Now this thermocouple—it behaves like an inefficient heat sink, unintentionally cooling the surface you are trying to measure. To observe, is to change.

"Now, in the quantum realm, this concept becomes significantly harder to visualize. Described in layman's terms, it sounds supernatural—but trust me, there's decades of research to back this shit up.

"In its natural, unobserved state, an electron behaves like a wave. Meaning, its position is unknowable. A wave function equation can give you an idea—the probability that it's in a given location. But really, it could be fuckin' anywhere! It is anywhere! Until the simple act of observation causes that wave to collapse into a particle, and causes all those possibilities to reduce to a single state.

"But what's an observation? What causes this wave function collapse? The physical detector or the information it records? Or, perhaps, the existence of an external force for whom that information holds meaning? A _person_ , a human _mind_.

"Now, I mean, there's no real evidence to back up the theory of quantum consciousness. But until we understand what _causes_ the wave function to collapse, can we discount it? I mean, shit, man, imagine the social ramifications, if we could define consciousness at such a fine, scientific level! Could it be altered, or preserved? Could it be destroyed? Could we _create_ new consciousness whole cloth—conjure it like a god?!"

"Hey, no offense, Freeman, but what the hell are you talkin' 'bout?"

Lunchtime brings a rare moment of levity to life at Black Mesa. It's staff—uniquely older on average—endure the workday with dutiful solemnness. They make for uninteresting conversationalists, at the best of times. But there are rare exceptions, one of which being the man sitting opposite Gordon at the cafeteria table—Barney Calhoun.

"The Psi Lab! Where you're assigned this month, man. Keep up."

"One and a half years of community college didn't prepare me for the bullshit you're spoutin'."

With a shrug, Gordon takes a bite of his lunch—one of those premade lasagnas from the frozen foods section, with its watery tomato sauce and tasteless low-fat cheese. Still leaps and bounds better than the Black Mesa Brand slop Barney subjects himself to. "C'mon!" he mock-whines, "It's interesting stuff!"

"Interestin'," Barney says in scare quotes, "Can’t you scientists leave shit like conjurin' and consciousness to the purview of new age cranks?"

Gordon stifles a laugh, if only to keep himself from spitting chewed bits of lasagna onto the table. Frankly, he agrees with Barney. As fun as it is to speculate about, trying to shoehorn quantum mechanics into theories of consciousness blows past pseudoscience. But then again, Gordon has no room to pass judgement. Thanks to Black Mesa's cutting edge research, teleportation—once a concept relegated to the realm of soft sci-fi novels—is ushering in a new scientific revolution.

The conversation enters a natural lull, both men focused on their meals. The busybodies—those for whom lunch is an unwanted distraction from work—begin filing out. The stragglers chatter among themselves in low tones. One particularly crotchety man has a quiet shouting match with the perpetually-malfunctioning microwave, displeased with how it failed to reheat his food.

"So, uh," Barney starts, hesitation in his voice. Nervously, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Tomorrow's Friday… Uh, Friday evening? I was thinkin', maybe, you wanna grab a few beers after work?"

An uncomfortable tightness in Gordon's throat makes it difficult to swallow his food. He frowns and forces this current mouthful down, then finds himself compelled by a sudden urge to rub the back of his neck. "Man, I really don't… Look, as much as I want to go," he says, mincing words, "This parenthood thing, you know. It never turns off."

"Every day? What ever happened to joint custody?"

"I only get him on the weekends—Friday to Monday morning." It's not that Gordon doesn't want to spent time with Barney—it's been months since they've hung out outside of work. But he feels this lingering guilt. Guilt over giving his ex-wife the lion share of the child-rearing work. Shouldn't a father make the occasional effort for his son? He could offer to hit the bar on a weekday evening, instead. But with age, it becomes harder to shake off the ache of fatigue and a mild hangover in the morning. "I'm sorry, man, I _want_ to hang out. Just not—not this week, ok? I'm real sorry."

"It's fine, Gordon, it's fine," Barney says with an exasperated laugh—exasperated by either Gordon's flakiness or his awkward show of apologizing. Or both. "We should be gettin' back to work anyhow."

Barney straps on his bulletproof vest and dons his helmet—Gordon, in the meantime, disposes of their trash. Together, the two men walk out of the breakroom and into the hallway. Deserted, save for a single scientist—a younger man who hurries past, a stack of papers threatening to fall out of his arms. "Hey, uh, you mind swiping me in?" Gordon asks, in reference to the card-access door at the end of the hallway. The entrance to Sector C. It feels selfish to ask for a favor, after completely rejecting Barney. But over this, Gordon has no room for shame. "Left my badge at home."

Barney walks down the hall, but not before shooting Gordon a smug grin. He stops at the RFID reader, and pulls at the retractable lanyard that's clipped to his vest. "I shouldn't be doin' this," he says in a tone that suggests he has no qualms about it.

"Yeah, yeah, go write yourself up, hall monitor."

"Hey, now, you owe me one, friend," Barney says, spinning around to face Gordon. He dangles the badge in front of Gordon's face, like a man taunting a dog with a fresh slice of chicken breast. "How 'bout you pay me back tomorrow? We don't gotta go out, I can come over to your place. Josh's old enough to hold a game controller, right? We can boot up that old PS1 of yours. Boys' night."

A thought that's never occurred to Gordon in any serious capacity—a night in. He figured a man in his twenties wouldn't want to spend a Friday evening playing co-babysitter. But if Barney is offering, the idea doesn't sound half bad. "Fine," he concedes, unable to contain an excited grin, "We can do boys' night."

"Hell yeah," Barney says and rewards Gordon by swiping the card reader. The device beeps once, its LED indicator lighting green. The doors unlock with a satisfying _clunk_ , and Gordon pushes his way into Sector C. With one last burst of victorious energy, Barney yells, "Boys' night!" The words echoing pleasantly in Gordon's mind, as the doors shut behind him.

————————————————————

Gordon Freeman doesn't remember this exchange. It never lingers in his subconscious, never blends into the scenery of his dreams. He doesn't remember, because it never happened. And the security officer, Barney Calhoun, never existed.

The human mind processes time as a linear flow of events. As a sequence of permanent states, cascading one after the other. But on the quantum level, matters of causality break down. One action causing a backpropagation of events, wherein the effect determines the cause. The creation of a new state, retroactively erasing all signs of another. History is rewritten by those who observe it.

Gordon doesn't remember this exchange, but what he _does_ remember—reclining on his bed that Thursday night, listening to the apartment AC kick on and off—is that Bubby recently bought a shiny new Cadillac.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Makes a documentary with a wavy soundtrack about Barnrey trutherism, and posts it in 3 parts on youtube 
> 
> Anyways, next chapter will back to the regular programming! Sorry bout the self-indulgent interstitial chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who stuck with me, and my self-indulgent writing. I loved and appreciated and cherished every comment!

The sound of wheels squealing against pavement harkens Bubby's arrival long before Gordon receives a text. It took him south of an hour to show up, taking a detour to pick up Tommy along the way. It's strange—the Science Team has never spent time together outside of work. The sight of them in full casualwear throws Gordon for a loop. Some childish part of his brain imagined Dr. Coomer, sleeping on top of his bedsheets, using his lab coat as a blanket.

And yet, here they are—Coomer riding shotgun, Tommy in the rear driver's side seat—decked out in the most inoffensive, most _normal_ clothing imaginable.

Gordon slides in next to Tommy, tossing an old duffel bag between them. A tattered old thing—cardinal red, emblazoned with the MIT logo. Back in the day, it was his go-to gym bag. Bubby cranes his neck to level Gordon an annoyed look. "You better have a good explanation for this," he warns.

To drive out here to begin with—that alone is a rare sign of faith. A gesture which Gordon appreciates, but also fears—whether his explanation is 'good' is somewhat subjective. He'd wager that Tommy and Coomer will cooperate unquestioningly, but Bubby is a different story. "So, uh… Christ. How do I put this?"

"With your fucking words!"

"R-right," he stammers, "So, Benrey. He's, uh… He's been living at the lab—the one I work at—for basically a month now."

Tommy pivot in his seat so quickly, his seatbelt locks. He draws in a long gasp, to match his comedically shocked expression. "Mister Freeman, that—that's so _long_. Doesn't he have anywhere else to stay?"

"You see, that's the thing," Gordon says, rubbing his neck, "He's not allowed to leave."

What a roundabout way to describe 'being held prisoner'! Gordon regrets the phrasing immediately—he didn't mean to downplay the situation or deny his own complicity. Tommy doesn't respond, but not for lack of trying. After a few false starts, he resigns to silence, looking away from Gordon to focus on his fidgeting hands. In the rearview mirror, Gordon catches Dr. Coomer's watchful gaze. It's Bubby who breaks the tension, turning the key in the ignition. "I was wondering where that bastard went," he says and hits the acceleration, peeling out of the apartment parking lot with reckless abandon.

The drive to the storage facility is mercifully quiet—although, admittedly, conversation is tough in a moving convertible. Normally, Bubby's wanton disregard for traffic laws would drive Gordon's blood pressure through the roof. Make him question the rigorousness of New Mexico's driving test. But tonight, Gordon lets it slide. The streets are empty, and he has somewhere to be.

The car maintains a steady 45 mph speed, even on sharp turns. It isn't until they reach their destination that Bubby remembers the concept of a brake pedal. The car jolts to a stop, angled such that it spans three parking spots. The lot is otherwise empty, save a few U-Haul vans. Gordon had anticipated the possibility of night shift security, but prays it won't come to that. "Mister Freeman," Tommy says, voice weak and tentative, "We're going to—we're gonna break him out, right? That's why we're here?"

"That's right, buddy," Gordon says, soft and reassuring.

Duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Gordon exits the car. He takes quick stock of his surroundings—the combination of flood lights and a gibbous moon provide good visibility. Nothing stands out. "Bubby, keep the car running. But turn off the headlights. If someone shows up, I want you to distract them. _Distract_ ," he emphasizes, "Not kill. And text me immediately. Tommy and I are going inside. If we're lucky, this won't take long."

Luck has graced Gordon's with its presence tonight—he finds that his RFID tag unlocks the front door to the lab. Dr. Keyes, in spite of his intellectual posturing, wasn't bright enough to deactivate to keycard system overnight. Sure, the system would log Gordon's ID number, but anonymity wasn't a concern at this point. Inside, the primary overhead lights are off—handful of emergency lights providing a dim, ambient glow. Everything is powered off—the monitors, the lab equipment. Obscured in shadows stands the operating table, a grim monument to Gordon's guilt.

Briefly, Gordon wonders what happened after he left—after he scattered surgical tools across the floor and stormed out. Had the surgery continued without him? After all, he was little more than an audience member in an operating theater. But then, Benrey _had_ broken one of his restraints—seemingly dissolved it through sheer mental will. A troubling reaction, enough to give any sensible scientist pause.

Tommy regards the room with anxious curiosity—no doubt looking for safety compliance violations. From his duffel bag, Gordon pulls out an unloaded Colt 1911 and a magazine. "In case someone sneaks past Bubby and Dr. Coomer," he says, passing the gun to Tommy, "It's for intimidation, first and foremost. Got it? Shooting is the last resort, man." 

"Okay, Mister Freeman," Tommy says, the shakiness in his voice contrasting the steadiness of his hand. He's always wielded weapons like a pro.

As Gordon approaches the door to Benrey's room, he struggles to control his own breathing. What does it say about a man, when he is more prepared for a potential shootout than an honest conversation? He swipes his badge and enters the passcode into the keypad. An actuator receives the signal to unlock. A small LED on the keypad blinks an affirmative green. Gordon presses his hand flat against the cold, steel door and applies a pushing force, causing it to swing on its hinges. He takes a deep breath.

The bright fluorescents stun Gordon for a moment, eyes stinging as he adjusts to the light. The floor is littered with junk—crumpled papers and books and bicycle cards, tossed about in perfect disarray. And to Gordon's relief, there's Benrey, laying flat on his back on the aluminum table, hands clasped over his sternum like a mock corpse. Without sparing Gordon a glance, Benrey speaks, "You're not s'posed to be here."

"Yeah, I know, I—"

"What do you think you're doing here? You, ah—thinkin' 'bout stealing? Thieving and stealing like always?"

"I am, actually," Gordon says, unzipping the duffel bag and dropping it onto a chair, "I brought you a change of clothes. They're probably too big, but, like. It's gotta be more comfy than this nylon hospital shit you're wearing."

"What, uhhh—don't want that. Don't want your shit clothes, bro." Benrey fidgets with his shirt, tugging at the thin fabric. A replacement—his previous shirt in tatters, abandoned in some trash can. "What makes you think, uh, coming in here all the time, telling me to do things… And tricking me, even when I'm being great! Nothin' makes you happy, man, you—what do you _want_?"

What _does_ he want? The question weighs like a stone, heavy in Gordon's stomach. Broadly speaking, he wants a modest life. A steady job and a safe world, devoid of any pending existential disasters. He wants peace of mind, he wants to escape the guilt that's always nipping at his heels. He wants to abandon the vindictive rage he's saddled himself with. "I want you to apologize," he says, but even that feels incomplete. Stray puzzle pieces organized by color. "And I want to apologize to you. And I want to understand—not in a scientist way! But in, like, a people way!"

"Apologize," Benrey says, playing with the word, stretching out the syllables, feeling the weight of it on his tongue. At first, his face scrunches up, repelled by its bitter taste. But after a few moments, his expression relaxes. Finally, Benrey turns his head to look at Gordon. "The, uh… the arm thing was pretty fucked, huh? Wasn't my idea, even. But 'm sorry about it. And about being bad, and… And I thought you wanted me to be bad, bro. Sick boss fight, with your clunky little Spartan armor, killing—killing bad guy Ripley, like a cool hero. But, uh… Guess I fucked that up."

To what extent the apology is heartfelt, Gordon doesn't know. The words are tainted, in part, by duress—an appeal by a prisoner for his release. But forgiveness is a featherbed, and Gordon's fatigue runs bone-deep. "I'm sorry about all of this, too, man. Keeping you in this room and almost letting those guys slice you up. And, like, generally being a huge asshole."

"It's cool," Benrey says, tone no longer cold, but casually aloof. He sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the table. "Shits cancels out, anyways. Equillibrant exchange."

"Yeah," Gordon says softly. Tabula rasa. But that's too reductive—part of understanding means reflecting on the past. It's an even playing field. Flat land upon which to build. He grabs the empty duffel bag. "Now hurry up and get changed. I'm sick of looking at this hellhole."

"Not even gonna carry me, bro? Carry your great friend?"

"Last time I check, you got two legs. I think you know how to use them."

Benrey slips off the edge of the table, standing to full height. He locks eyes with Gordon for a beat, and then he prat falls—limbs stuck at odd angles as he collapses to the floor. The sort of mild absurdity that Gordon can't resist laughing at. "Alright, alright, c'mon, man," he says between chuckles, "Can you just wait until we're outta here, before you start fucking around?"

Still supine on the floor, Benrey begins pulling his shirt over his head, shame a foreign concept to the man. His flesh is fully healed, no incision marks in sight—perhaps Gordon should've expected as much, but he's relieved, nonetheless. He turns around to give Benrey a semblance of privacy, looking back only once he hears the sound of sneakers squeaking against the floor.

Swimming in an old pair of jeans and a ratty band t-shirt, Benrey looks deceptively human. He kicks out one leg, loose-fitting sneaker dangling on his foot. "Y'know what they say about big shoes. Means you, ah," he pauses, smacking his lips, "You got big feet."

"Jesus fucking Christ, dude, don't make me regret this," Gordon says. He grabs Benrey by the shoulder, giving him a playful shove out the door.

The lab is exactly as Gordon left it—quiet and empty. Save for Tommy who stalks the shadows, diligently waiting for unexpected guests. "Tommy!" Benrey bellows, causing the man in question the jolt. Benrey picks up the pace, just shy of a jog as he beelines for Tommy. Surprisingly agile given the shoe situation.

"Hi, Benrey! Mr. Freeman and I—we came to save you! This place isn't up to code. It's not—it's not safe to live here. It doesn't meet local housing code."

"Mmhmm. Couldn't sleep at night. Trains going by, makin' noise all the time, rattling the walls and shit," Benrey says. Gordon is certain there are no railroads nearby, but he lets the comment slide. Benrey continues, muttering under his breath for a few seconds before asking, "So, uh, hug? Hug about it?"

"I would _love_ to give you a hug!" Tommy says, gasping with unrestrained delight. 

It's a bizarre sight—two grown men, neither of whom know how to hug, despite being eager to try. Rather than lean down to accommodate for the difference in height, Tommy wraps his arms around Benrey's head, pressing the man's face against the bony edge of his shoulder. Benrey, to his credit, seems equally confused, not so much 'hugging' as he is loosely encircling Tommy's torso with his arms. After a half-minute, Gordon clears his throat, interrupting the stilted display of affection. "Look, I really don't wanna hang out here longer than we need to."

Nothing awaits Gordon and company as they exit the storage facility. No jackbooted guards, no strobing police lights. Just an empty parking lot and the dull hum of a Cadillac engine. "Hello Gor—" Doctor Coomer starts, interrupting his first thought with a higher priority one, "Look, Gordon, Chief Security Officer Barney! Oh, I sure do love seeing an old friend."

"Yo," Benrey returns the greeting with a small wave. Then, he enters the car, ignoring the side door in favor of clamoring over it, tumbling unceremoniously into the rear passenger-side seat. 

"Hey!" Bubby barks, twisting around to shoot Benrey a stern glare, "I just got this baby back from the body shop. If you scuffed the paint, I'll make damn fucking sure your next death is permanent!"

From the driver's side, Gordon slides into the back seat, followed by Tommy. Uncomfortably cramped, shoulders bumping together—a stylish, midlife crisis car isn't designed for five passengers. Bubby turns on the high beams, illuminating the twin labs. For the second time in under a month, Gordon is unemployed. Thankfully, this time, his departure from the company resulted in significantly less bloodshed. 

Suddenly, something cold and soft presses against his right cheek, accompanied by an exaggerated smooching sound. A quick, clumsy peck. Gordon whips his head around, mouth ajar, bringing his hand up to rub at the spot where Benrey kissed him. "Yeah, man?" he asks, torn between feeling amused and dumbfounded.

"Whuh—huh? What?"

Without any further comment, Benrey fixes his eyes forward, engrossed by the details of Dr. Coomer's headrest. "You're welcome," Gordon says.

Bubby grabs the clutch, shifting the car into gear. "Hey, look, we don't got all night. What the fuck are we supposed to do, now?"

Somewhere in the world, alien hoards are flooding residential streets—driving people from their homes into dense, defensible areas. Somewhere in the world, people, once comfortable in the sweet monotony of daily life, are staring death in the face. But here, Gordon enjoys a warm breeze blowing through his hair. Something approximating peace settles in his chest. The car dashboard clock glows—12:34am, Friday morning. "How about we kick this weekend off early? There's a place in Washington state I've been meaning to visit."

Excitement tugs at the corners of Benrey's mouth, a smile gracing his typically-expressionless features. "Road trip?" 

"Yeah, bud. Road trip."

If Gordon was to list everything he appreciates about the Science Team, that list could fill a book. Their humor, their seeming invincibility, their courage. But most of all, he appreciates their ride-or-die attitude. Without question, Bubby hits the gas, wheels screaming as the car accelerates. Dr. Coomer opens the glove compartment, fumbling for a country map. And despite the wind rushing past his ears, Gordon can hear Benrey and Tommy chanting "road trip" as they tear away into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The global situation, with the portal storms, is theoretically a prelude a HLVRSE "7 Hour War". But that plotline was meant to be flavor text. Environmental factors driving the villain. 
> 
> Maybe I'll write a sequel, one day. I know how I'd resolve the Combine invasion. But I have other ideas, other stories swirling around my brain. So for now, the book is shut.


End file.
